We are delighted to hear that Mrs Everest (Senior Science Technician) has been invited to speak about her indicator droplet art at the ASE (Association of Science Education) annual conference in late January.

Mrs Everest said: “I will be talking about two projects I have been involved in as part of the technician’s day. The aim is to showcase exciting projects to fellow science technicians who will hopefully take some practical science ideas back to their classrooms!

 “Droplet Art is creating pictures out of droplets of chemicals and pH indicators all on a plastic sheet – it has been used by lots of different schools as part of lessons/STEM Clubs and we have used it as one of our activities at the BGS Open Morning in the Chemistry department.

“The Garden Indicators projects started during the first lockdown where a group of us using Twitter started to evaluate flowers in their gardens as pH indicators. This too has grown massively with a spreadsheet of results being generated with over 70 different plants tested, and lots of contributors worldwide. These projects have allowed me to present two technical posters as part of Royal Society of Chemistry Twitter conferences and also to collaborate with some Chemists at the University of St Andrews to co-author a paper on Garden Indicators. Droplet Art has most recently featured in a new reference book on Microscale Chemistry too.”

The BGS Horticulture Club are currently growing some violas and purple potatoes, which the students will make into pH indicators and test for their colour ranges. These will be brand new additions to the Garden Indicators spreadsheet.