This summer, two high school students boldly represented the U.S. in the 44th International Chemistry Olympiad, and one of them even took home the gold.
The event, sponsored by The Dow Chemical Company, included teams from more than 70 countries competing in intense chemistry examinations.
I had a chance to speak with two of the four members of the U.S. team: Jason Ge and Chris Hillenbrand. They spoke of their love of chemistry, the state of science education in our country, and what it's like to be a total nerd.
Watch our conversation by clicking on the video above and transcript below. And don't forget to give these boys a virtual high five by leaving a comment at the bottom of the page. Come on, talk nerdy to me (and them)!
CARA SANTA MARIA: Hi everyone. Cara Santa Maria here. I'm always excited by the chance to talk to young people about science. And it's extra exciting when those young people are total rock stars. Enter Jason Ge and Chris Hillenbrand. They're two of the four kids who represented the United States in the International Chemistry Olympiad last month.
JASON GE: It was a 10-day experience where it was mostly graded on two main tests. One of them was a five-hour lab practical split into two parts and the five-hour theoretical exam, which covered everything from organic chemistry to biochemistry to physical chemistry.
CHRIS HILLENBRAND: I think the United States did well as a whole this year. We got one gold medal and three silver medals.
CSM: And who took home the gold?
CH: I won the gold medal.
CSM: Jason and Chris are about to start 11th and 10th grade, respectively. And even though they've only taken basic high school chemistry courses, their knowledge in the field rivals that of many graduate students. And the coolest part? A lot of what they know, they learned themselves by laboring for hours over advanced chemistry texts.
CH: Each element has its own set of reactions and properties and just having a pure substance that behaves in a certain way is really remarkable for me, at least, because usually everything’s a mixture of crud. We’re just carbon and nitrogen and a bunch of other stuff, but I like the pure substances the most. Like they just have behaviors of their own and sometimes they smell good, sometimes they can do really interesting things, and they react sometimes violently, which is interesting to watch.
JG: Organic chemistry is just beautifully designed, there’s so many things you can do with it. You can do almost anything. Nowadays pretty much all chemistries and many of the new discoveries we make are all in the fields of organic chemistry. All medicines, all biochemistry, it’s all related to organic.
CSM: Interestingly, Jason and Chris are a bit disillusioned with how chemistry's being taught in most schools around the country.
JG: Nowadays in our schools we don’t really get the opportunity to do a lot of the labs we would have done 50 or 60 years ago. Nowadays people think almost everything's dangerous, so that’s been a bit of a hindrance. But, you know, my parents are chemists so they have, I’ve seen a lot of things in the lab before that I would not have had the chance to if they weren’t.
CH: I think that we should make the spirit of experimentation popular once again as it was in the ‘60s. In those old days you could buy chemistry sets that had real chemicals in them like iron salts, copper salts, lye, and alcohol and alum, and you could grow your own crystals and make your own ink and things like that, but nowadays, kids only get things in chemistry sets like salt, sugar or baking soda or vinegar. I think that’s a shame because companies are concerned about liability and safety and things like that. I think that kids should be taught how to responsibly and safely work with chemicals so that our country can become more educated.
CSM: I think that's pretty good advice from a starry-eyed teenager, and it shouldn't be taken lightly. These kids are our best and brightest, and we can learn a lot from what they have to say. I asked them what science is, what it means to them.
JG: Science is something that, well, it’s something that I personally love. But it’s something that’s so important to our future that it’s wonderful to learn about it because without science so many things would go wrong in the future and we need people to understand that.
CH: I think that science is a system designed for finding knowledge, creating new knowledge, analyzing that knowledge, and coming up with new possibilities. It’s the study of how things work. How the world operates.
JG: I guess science is actually just learning. In fact anything you do ends up tying back to science eventually. Everything you do is based on science. So pretty much everything you do, everything you learn, that’s what science is.
CSM: I hope that Jason and Chris inspire kids and adults alike to see the beauty, mystery, and fascination in science that they see themselves, everyday.
JG: I’m proud of being a science nerd.
CH: I’m proud that I’m a nerd.
CSM: And I'm proud of Chris and Jason for being such nerds, really. Because there's no denying that nerds are our future. And what about you, are you a nerd? Sound off on Twitter, Facebook, or leave a comment right here on the Huffington Post. Come on, talk nerdy to me!
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