National Chemistry week is a public awareness campaign that promotes the importance of chemistry in everyday life, particularly to children. This year the theme was "The Hidden Life of Spices," chosen to demonstrate the chemical properties of spices. Spices are used for many things in our day-to-day life including foods, aromatherapy, making perfumes, health benefits, and more! We partnered with the Children's Museum of Houston to host our event with dedicated volunteers.

Our volunteers in the Matter Factory!

The activities included secret messages with spice, hydrophobic properties of cinnamon and wax paper, cooking spices, Play Doh, and a History of Spices: Earth's Edible Treasures.

The secret messages with spice activity demonstrated the chemistry behind turmeric. Turmeric contains the chemical curcumin, which appears a different color to our eyes depending on the nature of the medium in which it is mixed. An acid would make it turn yellow and a base would make it turn red. When painting a tumeric mixture over a message from a baking soda mixture, the parts that contained baking soda turned red, revealing the message.

The cinnamon activity showcased how wax paper and the essential oils in cinnamon are hydrophobic. The children were given pipettes and observed how water doesn't absorb into the wax paper, but does on the hydrophilic paper towel fibers. When they dipped their fingers into a water cup with a cinnamon layer on top, the cinnamon coated their fingers and kept it dry, while an already wet finger had less cinnamon stuck to the wet surface. Robbyn Pope also brought common household spices for children to smell and learn about.

Our volunteers were very proactive and engaging teaching the chemistry behind these spices. The event started at 9 am and ended at 2 pm with many kids and families visiting throughout the day.

We had another great year hosting this event and look forward to National Chemistry Week 2026!