Human
Maine Professor Wins Points By Teaching Chemistry In Beer Lab
Brooke James
First Posted: Aug 27, 2016 07:26 AM EDT
It is not always easy to keep kids interested in Chemistry -- unless they're budding chemists, most people think it boring, until they realize that they can actually use it in real life. Like the fact, for instance, that to make beer, you actually have to use chemistry to make it look and taste good -- and for it to actually turn into the favorite college party drink in the first place.
Speaking of college partying, to show her students the use of Chemistry, a Maine professor hoped to spark some interest by brewing some beer. An overseer of the University of Southern Maine's new Quality Assurance/Quality Control and Research Laboratory, Lucille Benedict said it had been challenging to keep students engaged in chemistry, so she started using beer as their testing medium.
Th lab has already partnered with the Maine Brewer's Guild to provide testing and training for breweries. So far, her experiment has been a success -- according to Deccan Chronicle, students stated that the beer-testing lab allowed them ti use science to solve real-world problems.
Classes will begin in the fall, and their focus: how a flawed brewing process can contaminate or ruin batches of beer. USA Today also noted that the students will be testing beer for color, alcohol content, bitterness, and contamination using technology that many breweries cannot afford.
The research lab just opened for students in March, with a grant from the Maine Economic Improvement Fund. While brewing classes are not exactly rare, Benedict said that she didn't know of any other university that had a working lab like theirs. For undergraduates who are planning on taking classes, there will definitely be enough beer to go around -- but not for their party consumption.
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First Posted: Aug 27, 2016 07:26 AM EDT
It is not always easy to keep kids interested in Chemistry -- unless they're budding chemists, most people think it boring, until they realize that they can actually use it in real life. Like the fact, for instance, that to make beer, you actually have to use chemistry to make it look and taste good -- and for it to actually turn into the favorite college party drink in the first place.
Speaking of college partying, to show her students the use of Chemistry, a Maine professor hoped to spark some interest by brewing some beer. An overseer of the University of Southern Maine's new Quality Assurance/Quality Control and Research Laboratory, Lucille Benedict said it had been challenging to keep students engaged in chemistry, so she started using beer as their testing medium.
Th lab has already partnered with the Maine Brewer's Guild to provide testing and training for breweries. So far, her experiment has been a success -- according to Deccan Chronicle, students stated that the beer-testing lab allowed them ti use science to solve real-world problems.
Classes will begin in the fall, and their focus: how a flawed brewing process can contaminate or ruin batches of beer. USA Today also noted that the students will be testing beer for color, alcohol content, bitterness, and contamination using technology that many breweries cannot afford.
The research lab just opened for students in March, with a grant from the Maine Economic Improvement Fund. While brewing classes are not exactly rare, Benedict said that she didn't know of any other university that had a working lab like theirs. For undergraduates who are planning on taking classes, there will definitely be enough beer to go around -- but not for their party consumption.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone