Going Clubbing: Q/A with Chem Club’s Martin

The Rider Chronicle will be doing a month Q/A with the advisors of several different clubs on campus this year. This month’s feature is about Chem Club, which meets every other Thursday after school.

Advisor Stacie Martin discusses chem club’s role and purpose at Rider. Anyone can join chem club, you do not even have to be in a science class to be a member.

Q: What does chem club do?

A: Chem club is kind of a mixture of an enrichment organization for the study of chemistry. We also like to pick something we do as a kind of a community service. We are a mixture of both recreation, academic in enrichment and service. 

Q: How many students participate in chem club?

A: We’ve had as high as 40 kids, currently probably around 20 kids. 

Q: Does chem club have any events throughout the school year?

A: We do not have any events planned so far, other than our normal meeting time, but it’s subject to possibly change depending on what our officers decide. 

Q: Why should students join chem club?

A: If you are interested in science, you’re interested in chemistry, you just want to do some exploration with different chemical topics and not have to worry about grades, but just kind of the fun part. Then chem club is full of fire, color changes, all sorts of interesting things and maybe an explosion. 

Q: Did you start chem club and why?

A: I started chem club at Rider, it is a national-affiliated organization through the American Chemical Society (ACS). Chem club started in the summer of 2016, and 2017 was the first charter year. I started the organization, and as far as I know, there is no other school in WFISD that has a chem club. We may be one of the only chem clubs that is associated with ACS in Wichita County, but I’m not 100% certain on that, but in Wichita Falls we are.

Q: What made you want to be in charge of the chem club?

A: The American Chemical Society, particularly chem club, put on lots of different seminars where things you can do in a club environment with kids. I kind of liked the feel for the organization, it provides opportunities, some resume and scholarship opportunities for students that are interested in pursuing a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) career. So I thought it would be a nice addition to the clubs for Rider.