Becoming S4S
Spark for Science is real!
Today, we delivered our first Spark Session at Happy Child, an NAEYC-accredited early childhood program in Newton, MA.
Did you know…
“Magic” pH indicator allows us to change the color of clear liquids? Well, these kids do!
Locker-Room Beginnings
Spark for Science, or our idea behind it, began three weeks ago in the most unsuspecting of places: the Roxbury Latin locker room. Inspired by my brother Alex who had recently joined Back to Bach, a youth project to share classical music with young kids, I shared the idea with Andrew and wondered whether we could do the same. Both of us have benefited immensely from early STEM educations and this opportunity to provide a similar experience for younger kids seemed the perfect way to pay our luck forward.
Cambridge Inventors Club
Through 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, the Cambridge Inventors Club in Kendall Square nurtured my early interest in engineering. Since then, I have moved into cryptography research with MIT’s PRIMES program.
RSM!
For Andrew, the Russian School of Math helped create a wonderful environment for creative exploration which has since turned into statistics work at Dartmouth.
So, inspired by both B2B and CIC, we set out to create wonderful STEM experiences for younger kids in the Greater Boston area. How? Well, as magicians.
Sodium Polyacrylate is a superabsorbent polymer capable of absorbing 300 to over 800 times its weight in water. Via osmosis, the “magic” substance soaks the water into gel, making it disappear!
At my house the following Sunday, we combed through various chemical phenomena that both felt educational AND that we could present as “magic.” After recording videos for this first phase of our curriculum, Andrew and I reached out to a couple daycares around the area!
pH indicator will reveal hydrogen ion concentration, making the acid-base character of solutions directly observable!
Here we go!
Last Wednesday, we received our first reply! Roman, Happy Child’s program manager, said he was willing to take a chance.
Seems like an exciting visit…
Of course, we immediately said “YES!” and got to work finalizing details for today’s session.
A weekend of planning, all in two boxes.
Last night, we ran through the curriculum one final time. After enlisting the help of my brother Alan (Alex’s twin), the three of us hand pressed a pint of red cabbage juice and printed out our explanation slides. We were ready!
Andrew, Alan, and I got to school at 7:30am this morning to first debut these tricks with RL’s Science Club. Safe to say, they went great! Soon, once the last bell rang after our respective days, we took off!
Spark Session Number One
By 2 PM, we were shaking hands with Roman, a fit, energetic, and bright-eyed man in his 30s. He welcomed us in and, as we set up, told stories of his past career as a Chemical Engineer. Did you know about the massive engineering efforts behind tailoring reactions for 10,000 liter chemical vats?
When the children returned from their recess at 3:30, we began.
After showing off all the capabilities of our “magic potion,” we let the kids get up and try the mixing for themselves!
Andrew made water disappear and the children were absolutely shocked. Look to 0:44 for an amazing “Oh my Gauud!” reaction!
Finally, we made the flipping hexagons come to life by switching from green to orange…and back!
After our demonstrations, we broke the kids up into groups and made these flipping hexagons with them. Although we don’t have photos (Alan was also busy with the stations), the children really enjoyed it.
Reflections
On the way back, Andrew and I were super excited. Reflecting on the past few weeks of Spark for Science, we can not wait for the next few months to come. Now that we know what a great Spark Session looks like, our goal is to scale our impact across as many youth organizations and daycares as possible in Massachusetts, and across other states later as well.
Much more to say but we’ve got tons more planning to do tomorrow. S4S is real, and we believe it can be big. Until next time!
Eric Archerman
11.21.2025
