William Van Der Sluys, assistant teaching professor of chemistry at Penn State Altoona, is tying in the uncertain fate of the penny with lab experiments in his classroom.
ALTOONA, Pa. — William Van Der Sluys, assistant teaching professor of chemistry at Penn State Altoona, is tying in the uncertain fate of the penny with lab experiments in his classroom.
With a minting cost of more than double its actual value, the U.S. Treasury was recently ordered to halt production of the penny. It’s unclear what will happen next for the coin.
Van Der Sluys says being able to use current events in the classroom helps make learning relevant and engaging for students.
The penny was once made entirely of copper but is now nearly 98% zinc covered by a thin copper plating. For one lab experiment, students use cut and dissolved pennies to determine the density of metals.
Van Der Sluys says that understanding types of reactions and being able to determine the amounts of various elements in a sample are skills that can be translated into engineering and other scientific jobs.
Van Der Sluys was recently featured in a television news report.
