Short Wave - And The Winner Is...Science!

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

Camille Schrier, a 24-year-old pharmacy student, competed in the Miss Virginia pageant over the summer with a "talent" that caught our attention. It put her love of science center stage. On today's episode, we tell you how she won her state crown. This Thursday, Camille may have a chance to show off that talent again under a much bigger spotlight, Miss America 2020. Follow host Maddie Sofia on Twitter @maddie_sofia. Email the show at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Here's something you may not know. Science people are some of the most competitive people around. Think about it. Many scientists have to compete against each other to get the grant money they need for research. And being the first to discover something is a big deal. Which brings me to my next point. This month, every NPR podcast is competing to see who can get the most listeners to donate to their local public radio station. And while I have some amazing colleagues who do,

very fine podcasts here at NPR, I want to crush them, like bugs. So help us do that. Go to donate.mpr.org slash short to find your local public radio station and give. Donate.npr.org slash short. Tiny little bugs. You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Tomorrow night, the Shortwave team, is going to be paying attention to the Miss America competition.

Yeah, you heard me, there's one contestant in particular we'll be looking out for. Camille Schreier, she was crowned Miss Virginia this past summer, and what she did then back in June caught our attention and set herself apart from all the other contestants. It was during the talent portion of the competition. Of course, there was singing, and some dancing. But then Camille, a 24-year-old pharmacy student, walked out on stage in a white lab coat and goggles.

I've loved science since I was a little girl. And now I have the opportunity to pursue the career in what she did next, the talent she performed, arguably helped her win the pageant and my little science communication heart. Today on the show, how Camille combined her love of science with her love of pageants to win Miss Virginia. And maybe, fingers crossed, the big crowd tomorrow night. Okay, so let's back up. Last year, Camille Shreyer was working on her pharmacy degree at Virginia Commonwealth University. It was tough. She was feeling that grad school pressure.

Grad school life is a lot, really kind of the volume and speed at which information comes out you. I kind of describe it as drinking from a fire hydrant. But Camille wanted to make time for one more passion. As a teenager, she stopped competing in pageants to concentrate on school, but she never forgot her dream to compete in Miss America. But there were two things holding me back. I did not have a performing talent, and there was a swimsuit competition which I didn't feel like represented what I wanted to do. Right.

You know, I'm a confident person, but I don't feel the need to be judged on my physical appearance or especially my body in a swimsuit. But then in 2018, the days of the Miss America swimsuit competition are over. The Miss America organization threw out the swimsuit competition. Miss America is now saying, bye-bye bikini. Once that was gone, I said, okay, well, you know, the only thing holding me. me back with the talent. And so my mom, she said, you have a lot of talents. It's just that you don't have anything that's, you know, performing talent. So I took that as a challenge because I'm thinking, okay, I do have talents and I'm a scientist. And I have some pretty good public speaking skills.

So I tried to combine that in a way that would be engaging and entertaining. And what is more engaging and entertaining than a science demonstration? Nothing. The answer is nothing. Yep, that's the talent Camille performed at Miss Virginia. The thing that I really wanted to do was get kids excited. So that was what I designed this to look like. Science is all around us. So it's game time. Camille walks across the stage in her lab coat and goggles.

She steps up to a makeshift lab with three large flasks on a table. Now, in my flasks are concentrated hydrogen peroxide, food coloring, and dish soap. Now remember, Camille is a pharmacy student. She's doing some pretty advanced chemistry at school, but her plan is, The plan here is to wow the judges with a simple and clear demonstration of a chemical reaction, something kids could understand. In this case, she chooses to demonstrate the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide, a.k.a. catalytic decomposition. Catalysts are chemicals that are used to speed up reactions. And what we're about to watch is the catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide.

First, she picks up a bottle full of potassium iodide. I'm about to pour in potassium iodide, my catalyst, which will start the breakdown. The second the potassium iodide hits the hydrogen peroxide, huge plumes of green, blue, and red foam shoot up into the air. Now, this reaction is very simple. It only produces three things. Water, oxygen, gas, and heat. You know, the reaction on stage is really fun because I add dist soap in there, and so that creates foam that traps all of those gases that are released. And that's what creates that big plume of foam that comes out. So the reaction is really fun to do. I will tell you that the scarletes. Part of it standing there is to make sure that I don't get hit with the foam. Because it's full of food coloring, too.

So I'll just, you know, look like a green monster for the rest of the day. Science really is all around us. Camille, don't you feel like you would have represented science a little better if you would have planned it for weeks? Gone out there, accidentally punched a beaker over in the first minute, it crashes to the ground, you scream out loud. We're going to try again tomorrow and then walked off the stage. That would be actually probably really representative of what real science. looks like. But I was concerned that people might look at me and say, this isn't a talent. Were you worried about how people were going to react?

I was. It's something that's so non-traditional in this type of a realm that, you know, you're not sure, especially in Virginia, which is typically a very conservative state, very traditional in terms of the Miss America organization. And so I come in here with a science demonstration, and I'm unsure if this is going to be, you know, received. well. And I think what I was able to do was to, you know, still have some of those traditional aspects of Miss America in terms of having those really strong public speaking skills and being able to engage kids. And so I think that that was how I was successful in this. Right. And I think anybody who's done any science education or worked with kids would agree that communicating science

to children is a skill. For me, I love working with kids because if you try to communicate science to them and you do a bad job, they're like, no, this is stupid and I hate you. You know what I mean? I agree with you. And I hope in the back of my mind that I would be able to inspire, you know, one young girl that was like myself who loved science to see that they could, you know, put on hair and makeup and wear beautiful dresses, but they could also do science and that those two weren't exclusive of each other because that's really who I am. And so I hope that that would be an outcome in the back of my mind, but I never expected it. to be this big. And I think the audience that you're reaching maybe isn't necessarily there for

science, you know what I mean? So I think one thing that I'm really think is important is trying to reach audiences that haven't already selected for science. Yes. And I think the other side of that is also true in the realm of people that were never interested in the Miss America organization, who are people of science, are now watching. Well, can I ask you about that? Because I think a lot of our listeners would still push back a little bit and say, hey, we know that Ms. America has removed the swimsuit competition and they're more focused on interviews and performances, but it's still, there's so many aspects or there's parts of that thing that still feel to us that maybe this isn't super empowering to women, even though they've maybe removed the swimsuit competition. How would you

respond to that? This type of an organization, for me, it gives me a creative outlet because I'm not someone who has a lot of artistic, you know, things that I do in my, in my free time. But I think that the skills that it gives young women to be able to go out and talk to sponsors to gain confidence in public speaking and talking on stage. And the other thing is that the scholarship money that this organization provides is just fantastic. There were $75,000 of scholarship money that were given out in Virginia alone this year. And I was able to get more than 21,000 of those. So I don't know how that's not empowering.

Before saying goodbye to Camille, I had to ask. If she makes the final cut for the big competition tomorrow night, will she do another science demonstration? Absolutely. Absolutely. Same one? Same one, different one? You know, that's going to have to be determined. I don't want to give anything. Oh, my gosh. Give me a little hint, Camille.

It's going to be a chemistry demonstration, but it will be in a venue that is much larger than where I competed for Miss Virginia. So things might have to be larger. More explodey is what you're saying. Potentially. There she is, Miss America. Thanks again to Miss Virginia, Camille Shrier. Good luck tomorrow night.

This episode was produced by Rebecca Davis and edited by Viet Le. I'm Maddie Safaya, and we're back tomorrow with more shortwave from NPR.