Science, Science Everywhere in Atlanta
By Danielle Freeman, Continuous Improvement Manager and Founder of the Clorox Southeast Science Education Team
Clorox employees, supported by the Clorox Southeast Science Education Team, came out in force to support the celebration of science more commonly known as the 2017 Atlanta Science Festival.
It’s only fitting, as The Clorox Company is a proud silver sponsor for the festival. The 11-day event includes 110 separate events including a grand finale — the Exploration Expo at Olympic Centennial Park.
Students enjoy a science demonstration at the Clorox Cleaning plant in Forest Park, Georgia.
Making science personal
This year, Clorox volunteers started visiting Atlanta-area classrooms in February, a month before the festival itself, to help local students ‘Imagine the Future.’ We met 1,050 students this way.
During the festival, our Cleaning plant in Forest Park plant hosted its very own community event: ‘The Science Behind the Scenes at Clorox.’
We welcomed 35 lucky attendees to the plant — the wait list was so long, we could have held two more tours. Visitors learned about The Clorox Company history, took a plant tour and finished with hands-on science demonstrations.
One of the science demos at Forest Park shares how our cat litter works; another shows how our dish soap works.
Everyone raved about the Forest Park-hosted event.
Amplifying our impact
Clorox volunteers also joined the scores of volunteers at other Science Festival events across Metro Atlanta, reaching 1,830 students through their efforts.
Finally, we had a superb booth at the Exploration Expo, a huge event in downtown Atlanta.
Our booth had four hands-on science demonstrations and is always a popular stop for attendees. One of our demonstrations was to create a thick goop with cornstarch and water. You can manipulate it into a ball to give it a solid form, but the moment you let go, the ball becomes goo. This illustrates the benefits of cornstarch, which we use in Kingsford® charcoal, Hidden Valley® ranch dressing and KC Masterpiece® barbecue sauce.
More than 20 employee volunteers gave up their Saturdays to help inspire the expo’s 18,000 attendees. Our volunteers were just amazing, thrilled to share with attendees that science is fun.
The Clorox Southeast Science Education Team’s mission is to inspire enthusiasm for and develop proficiency in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Because of our involvement with the Atlanta Science Festival, this March we reached 21,369 future scientists.
Since May 2013, when we formed the Southeast Science Education Team, we have met a whopping 123,100 future scientists.
We couldn’t have this impact without all of the wonderful Clorox employees who share their time every year, helping us foster a love of science in Metro Atlanta.
