Twelve-year-old Hannah Fuchs has never taken a chemistry class, but she knows her future job will be in a science laboratory.
The Ahwatukee seventh grade student had the unique opportunity Thursday to experience her desired occupation. As a winner of a national essay contest that asked middle school students to write about their dream jobs, Hannah was given a tour of the ASU chemistry and Biodesign buildings as well as the chance to participate in real lab experiments.
“I’ve always been really interested in science, but I never really liked the science that was just electricity and wires,” Hannah said. She was more interested in becoming a chemist.
The middle school student will not be able to take a chemistry class until at least her sophomore year at Desert Vista, but she still finds it fascinating.
The essay she wrote for Office Depot and USA Today’s Dream UP! Career Exploration program received the highest score out of all 35,000 essays in the contest, said Kathryn Riley, the Kyrene Akimel A-Al Middle School teacher who submitted Hannah’s essay. Hannah and the four other winners each got to spend a day experiencing their chosen future careers.
With her father, Steven Fuchs, Riley and ASU chemistry outreach director Jenny Green, Hannah set out on her ASU tour Thursday morning.
She spent the morning in a glass-blowing lab and then looked at spiders in another lab.
“The glass-blowing was really cool and so were the spiders,” Hannah said.
Hannah then went to the Biodesign building where she was able to don her new lab coat and extract chlorophyll from parsley with the help of student researchers.
She also met with physics professor Stuart Lindsay, who discussed DNA and told her that chemistry could be great fun.
“My favorite part of teaching is getting to make things go boom in front of the class,” he told her.
Hannah’s father said he and his wife, Laura Fuchs, are both proud of their daughter.
“I think it’s great that she’s investigating these things now, even if she ends up changing her mind,” Steven said.
He added that Hannah has always seemed to gravitate toward math and science, even though nobody in her family is a scientist.
Although only in seventh grade, Hannah is already in Algebra 1-2, a course considered ninth grade math by the Tempe Union High School District. She has been in advanced math and language arts courses for years and maintains straight A’s.
Hannah is also second chair with the cello in her middle school orchestra and participates in a club swim team.
“She’s just amazing,” Riley said. “She’s so multitalented and just a really nice girl.”
Before the tour ended, Hannah was able to meet another aspiring scientist just a few years older than her.
Kathleen Xu, a junior at Hamilton High School, has spent three afternoons a week since the beginning of the semester in an ASU lab cloning, purifying and crystallizing a protein that causes African swine fever.
Xu hopes to determine the structure of the protein and enter her work in a science fair in March. She realized she needed to use a real lab, so she wrote to an ASU professor and asked if she could volunteer at the University.
The two girls discussed their mutual love of science and school, and Xu offered Hannah advice on her upcoming Algebra 1-2 final, the first of many high school exams.
As the tour drew to a close and Hannah went to retrieve the materials she made in the glass-blowing lab, the girl looked overwhelmed by the day’s events.
“It’s been amazing and incredible and all around spectacular,” she said.
Reach the reporter at julia.shumway@asu.edu or follow @JMShumway on Twitter.
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