Role of CATS in Cooperation with High School

One of the most satisfying projects that one can accomplish is when we face a new, exciting situation while stretching our skills to deliver quality work. Mr. Mark F. Johnson, assistant to the Dean for 

Academic Technology for the College of Sciences, talks about his experience of taking photos and filming in the chemistry lab at EIU. 

The "Chemistry: The Central Science" textbook
Customized Edition for EIU

The project began in July 2014 following an idea by Daniel J. Sheeran, associate professor and General Chemistry Coordinator. Sheeran asked Johnson to record a few high school lab experiments, 

something that couldn’t be done in a high school due to safety concerns. However, using a chemistry lab at EIU equipped with the necessary safety 

measures, the team was able to safely document the experiments to show to high school students.

“It was for the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE); they wanted this for all the high schools,” says Johnson. “They are going to add in teachers’ 

interviews… we were shooting just the experiment part.”

One of the photographs taken by Johnson has since been published on the cover of EIU’s custom 

chemistry textbook Chemistry: The Central Science. The photograph displays the reaction of potassium when dropped into water. This reaction is visually explosive due to the chemical reaction of potassium causing water molecules to become unstable, 

releasing hydrogen extraordinarily quickly. Because of results of the chemical reactions, videotaping and photography were difficult; however, Johnson worked around these difficulties during the experiments. Photos of this and other experiments, such as the observation of the reaction of wire and acid, can be found at the following link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eiucos/sets/72157657121391508

Johnson used various technology resources to produce different results, some of which was provided by CATS Multimedia: a Canon 60D DSLR with a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 lens and Canon 5D MkIII with a Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 lens were utilized for videography and photography respectively.

Johnson is eager to do these kinds of projects more, seeing them as opportunities to promote EIU.  He is already working with members of the Multimedia team on a documentary, and he would like to shoot more videos and photos with different experiments in chemistry and physics.

For more information regarding this story, please contact: mfjohnson@eiu.edu