A DISPLAY WINDOW LABORATORY WALLACE ALFRED GILKEY Sacramento Junior College, Sacramento, California
SINCE many junior colleges and other institutions of learning are supported from public funds, we believe that methods of advertising, such as described here, a e a t e a more friendly attitude toward the schools in the mind of the average citizen. We feel that this account of our window displays may offer suggestions to others who may be interested in similar projects. Saturday, November Znd, was our Junior College Day a t a big local department store. Seventy-five students were employed by the store as extra clerks, but probably the most interesting part of the event was the window displays which were witnessed by tens of thousands of people. The physics exhibit consisted of a photoelectric cell placed in a beam of light which could be intercepted by a spectator outside of the window. This action caused lights within the window to be turned on and an electric motor to start. In the aeronautics department window, several students were constructing the wing of a plane, while in another window students from the art department were drawing portraits. The geology department exhibit consisted of a beautiful collection of minerals and a student performing tests. Since the organic chemistry exhibit was probably the most spectacular and received so much favorable comment, we will describe i t in more detail. The window space was about twenty feet long by seven feet wide. In the center was placed a table with test-tubes, beakers, a balance, a microscope, and chemicals for the synthesis of paranitroaniline red, osazones of sugars, and recrystalliiations of dinitrobenzene and acetanilide. On the wall behind the table was a periodic chart, a large benzene ring in jet black on a white background, a blackboard, and a large college banner. On one side in front of the table were six sets of apparatus for steam distillation, a Grignard synthesis using stirring motor, bromobenzene synthesis, and three sets of apparatus for fractional distillation. One of these was equipped witb a Vigreux column, 170 em. long, constructed from the top of a broken distilling flask and a Pyrex glass tube, 3 cm. wide. The other two were equipped with Hempel columns, 3.5 cm. wide. and nearly two meters long. These were filled with
clean, white quartz pebbles instead of the traditional glass beads. Each set of apparatus was attached to a single large ring stand (condensers vertical) and the six sets clamped together to give greater stability. Methanol lamps were used for heating. These cost al-most nothing when each is made from a discarded stock bottle, a cork, piece of glass tubing which must not reach below the level of the methanol, a wick made from ordinary cotton twine and a flat, circular, tinned iron plate placed on top of the cork. The greatest care was exercised to avoid chemicals with odors and danger from fire. Only water was placed in the six sets of apparatus. On the other side of the table was placed a series of specimen bottles and a chart showing products obtained in the synthesis of paranitroaniline red from coal. Behind these was a row of about forty books dealing witb different fields of organic chemistry. Two twelve-liter balloon flasks, each protected by being set in a large mixing bowl, served as book ends. Each contained a fermenting mixture of sugar solution and yeast and was equipped with a glass tube which led the evolved carbon dioxide so that i t would bubble through water. About thirty copies of periodicals, Chemical Abstracts, Industria2 and Engineering Chemistry, Journal of the American Chemical Society, JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION, Chemical b Metallurgical Engineering, Chemical Industries, etc., were arranged near the window glass in front of the whole exhibit. Many of these were open to show typical articles. A number of charts, diagrams, signs, etc., explained the operation of the different sets of apparatus. To increase the artistic appeal of the exhibit, all ring stands, test-tube racks, large tin cans for water baths, waste, etc., were painted a brilliant Chinese red. These were placed on a background of white oilcloth. Several students, each dressed in a white laboratory coat, worked in this display window laboratory. Some gave demonstrations of dyeing with paranitroaniline red, while others practiced writing equations on the blackboard or otherwise conducted themselves in a scholarly manner. On the whole we consider our window display not only a public scientific demonstration but a work of art and a creation of beauty.
