FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For further information contact:
Lynn Solorio, Manager, Stakeholder Communications,
Carus Corporation at 815/224-6682 or
lynn.solorio@caruscorporation.com

LaSalle/Peru, IL. – Carus Corporation observed National Chemistry Week 2006 with a number of events, including visits to junior high schools in LaSalle County. This annual celebration is an opportunity for children of all ages to have fun learning about the benefits of chemistry and the necessity of chemicals to everyday life. Carus employees celebrated the annual event by presenting chemistry demonstrations to more than 700 students and teachers in junior high classrooms across the Illinois Valley.

Carus employees demonstrated the wonders of chemistry with several exciting hands-on experiments relating to reactions, catalysts, the effects of pressure, and states of matter. Students volunteered to push a skewer through a balloon without popping the balloon, vacuum the air out of a beaker containing a marshmallow ghost causing the candy to inflate to twice its normal size, and several ever-popular liquid nitrogen experiments. The presentation also included information about chemical safety.

The 2006 theme of National Chemistry Week was “Your House – It’s All Built on Chemistry.” In addition to the classroom chemistry demonstrations, Carus employees presented the Science teachers at hosting schools with NCW t-shirts and memo boards, and gave each student a copy of the Celebrating Chemistry, the American Chemical Society (ACS) newsletter aligned with National Science Education Standards and featuring hands-on activities for elementary students related to materials to build homes, home safety and preparedness, and home recycling and conservation.

National Chemistry Week is an outreach program of ACS and is aimed at enhancing the public’s awareness of the contributions of chemistry to our everyday lives and the nation’s economy. This year, Bill Carroll, Past-President of ACS, and his staff visited the Illinois Valley and toured Carus Corporation. Dr. Carroll’s “Extreme Chemistry Tour” took him to ten cities throughout the Midwest during National Chemistry Week, including a visit to Carus Corporation in recognition of Carus’ many educational outreach programs. Dr. Carroll even participated in an experiment with the students at Holy Family School in Oglesby, one of the sites of Carus Corporation’s classroom chemistry demonstrations. ACS local sections, industries, educators, and promoters of chemistry awareness celebrate National Chemistry Week nationwide. Carus, a long-standing member of ACS, has been celebrating National Chemistry Week for many years.

Carus Corporation, founded in LaSalle, Illinois in 1915, is the world’s leading manufacturer of potassium permanganate, which is used mainly for environmental applications: to improve the quality of drinking water, to treat municipal and industrial wastewater, in air purification systems, and in the remediation (clean-up) of contaminated sites. Photo caption: Bob Byrne, retired Chemistry Professor at IVCC, assists LaSalle Lincoln Jr. High School students in hands-on chemistry experiments during National Chemistry Week, as Carus Corporation chemist Carlos Larios looks on. Carus employees presented classroom chemistry demonstrations to 700 Illinois Valley students and teachers during National Chemistry Week.

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