Local middle schoolers get a crash course in Earth science at INSTAAR Middle School Showcase
Earlier this month,Organic Geochemistry Laboratory ԲLennart van Maldegem posed a question to a group of eighth graders from behind a table jumbled with jars of candy, food coloring and pipettes.
“This is the organic chemistry lab, where we search for molecular fossils, they’re not visible,” van Maldegem said. “They’re mixed up in a rock with all of this other stuff, so how do we separate the fossils out? What do you think?”
INSTAAR PhD student Robert Kelleher shows students how to conduct a "candy chromatography" experiment. Gabe Allen, 2025.
“Explosions?” someone suggested, to laughter. In the end, the answer was, of course, chemistry. For the next 15 minutes, the students took turns pipetting food coloring onto coffee filters, adding water and then watching as the die separated into its composite colors.
“Candy chromatography” was just one of 12 activities that INSTAAR researchers organized during the annual INSTAAR Middle School Showcase. Throughout the day, more than 200 students from traversed the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Community campus in small groups.
INSTAAR PhD student Kevin Rozmiarek shows Angevine Middle School eighth graders how to operate a research drone on at the INSTAAR Middle School Showcase. Gabe Allen, 2025.
In one activity on the southwest lawn, PhD studentKevin Rozmiarek showed students how to operate a research-grade drone equipped with a thermal camera. Rozmiarek has led research efforts to measure atmospheric gasses inAlaska ԻGreenland using similar aircraft. He explained that the same drones used for research also support the University of Colorado’s Police Department and Emergency Management team during events.
Scott Kittelman at the Skywatch Observatory outside the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Community building during the INSTAAR Middle School Showcase. Gabe Allen, 2025.
On the other side of INSTAAR’s campus, University of Colorado Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences professional research assistantScott Kittelman gave students a tour of the University of Colorado “.” Using various analogies and examples, Kittelman explained how the instruments at the observatory measure a wide variety of atmospheric conditions.
Kittelman focused especially on the pyranometer, which measures solar radiation. He told the students that the simplest possible experiment would be to measure when it got light, at sunrise, and when it got dark, at sunset everyday.
“What would I learn, scientifically? Kittelman asked his audience. “I might learn something about the seasons on this planet—that the day length changes. And, if I learned that the days were longer, and I was measuring temperature too, I might find that there is a relationship between temperature and the day length.”
ٳٱ. He says his motivation is simple. Good science education lays the foundation for a new generation of scientists.
“Science is about inspiration. If you inspire kids early on, they find they have a talent for it and you get the best scientists that way,” Kittelman said. “Einstein’s father inspired him when he gave him a toy compass and explained that the needle was compelled by magnetic forces.”
INSTAAR chatted with a dozen or so students over lunch, in between the workshops and the bus ride home. Everyone seemed to come away from the day with a slightly different takeaway. Some reflected on a new insight.
“You have to learn about the past before you can say anything about the future,” Edward said, citing his group’s trip to theStable Isotope Lab’s ice core freezer. “You see how it was back then to see how it is today.”
Others were enamoured with the scientific instruments they encountered.
“It was pretty cool when the guy flying the drone could see all the way across Boulder,” Kyoshi said.
Almost everyone agreed on one thing. Touring INSTAAR was better than being back at school. And, if skipping school for a day is the thing that inspires the next Nobel laureate, so be it.
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If you have questions about this story, or would like to reach out to INSTAAR for further comment, you can contact Senior Communications Specialist Gabe Allen at gabriel.allen@colorado.edu.