Students take part in Queensborough chemistry lab

by Samantha Ubertini, staff reporter

Sophomore students had the opportunity to take part in an academic service-learning project for the department of chemistry at Queensborough Community College (QCC). Chemistry students used marshmallows to help teach themselves about density, mass, and volume on April 22.

“I thought the lab was a lot of fun. I didn’t think that the marshmallows would react the way they did to heat. I hope that this will help me understand what we learn next,” sophomore Marianna Brogna said.

Experiment number one was to see if the marshmallow would change densities and sink in water, for this students covered their marshmallow in cornstarch.

A second experiment showed how pressure and volume work together. Students removed air in a test tube to watch the marshmallow grow in size.

This last experiment tested temperature and volume, students put a marshmallow in a microwave and tested to see if it would grow in size because of the temperature change, the marshmallow ended up going in size.

“I think it’s cool that students from QCC came in to visit us and take the time to teach us something new and relevant to what we’re learning. I thought it was fun to learn about density and volume by using marshmallows,” sophomore Kayla Morell said.
Students had the chance to understand the direct relationship between temperature, density and pressure with mass and volume. This will help them as they start their next unit in the class.