We Love Science

Ep 81: The Shared Story of Everything - The Journey

• Shekerah Primus & Fatu Badiane • Season 5 • Episode 2

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We continue our interview with Colleen Kelley of Kids Chemical Solutions to learn about her journey into chemistry. Her journey began with a harrowing experience running from “raining radiation” as a young girl, facing this uncertainty with the same confusion as the adults around her. Reflecting back on this experience, Colleen realized that a lack of clear guidance and good communication founded in molecular literacy made it impossible for her, and those around her, to grasp how the community was impacted by the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. This experience stamped itself into her memory as she continued through school and her love of chemistry grew. Towards the end of high school, Colleen started to explore ways to attend college, which was an unfamiliar career path in her family. Fortunately, she was able to find her way to University of Richmond by joining the military, which provided her with the support to follow her dreams. As a college student, she was introduced to the world of research and instantly enjoyed it; from there Colleen was encouraged by her mentor to attend graduate school. And she did; graduating from Penn State University with a Ph.D. in chemistry. Her journey into writing, however, developed from a desire to connect with students and effectively teach chemistry. And, it wasn’t easy; each rejection was followed by disappointment as her ideas changed and developed. Originally Colleen wanted to publish a text book, and after lots of trial and error, she created a fun comic book series, the MC Detective Agency. Looking at the next phase of her journey, Colleen is looking forward to publishing the next set of comic books to complete the bundle that will give readers a foundation of college level chemistry.   

To hear about Colleen’s work with Kids Chemical Solutions, check out the previous episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1720419/episodes/17740197 

 

Tune into this episode to hear Colleen share: 

  • How she used characters to connect with her students and teach the principles of chemistry 
  • Her experience as a first generation college and graduate student 
  • The journey of creating and publishing a comic book


Reach out to Colleen and discover the MC Detective Agency on her website, Kids Chemical Solutions:

https://kidschemicalsolutions.com 


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Reach out to Shekerah:
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This is the journey. This is the journey.

On today's show, we continue our conversation with Dr. Colleen Kelley, creator of the MC Detective Agency, a comic book series that uses detective stories to teach chemistry. To hear more about her inspiring work and the comics, check out the previous episode. What did you like about this episode, Shekerah?

Man, what's not to like about this one? There was so much good story here. I really loved her. advice to younger self. You know, I always sit on the edge of my seat waiting for that question. Um, but overall, the thing that had the biggest impact on me was just her perseverance. Man, it took her so long to finally make her vision come true. Imagine standing in line for decades to get something done, right? Like, you really got to believe in that thing. And she failed a few times, but she got back up and tried again. So, I think that that's really a testament to how important this work of improving molecular literacy is to her. So yeah, I really loved hearing that. What about you? What was your favorite part?

Yeah, I really loved her origin story like her big science wow moment when she was a kid. Man, that was one wild story reading radiation. Like what? I think my eyes were literally like popping out of my head the entire time. And definitely not what I expected her to say, but such a good story. It's always great to hear the story behind the people and the story that made the work a reality. So, let's listen and enjoy. Hi everyone, welcome back to the show We Love Science. Our guest today is Dr. Colleen Kelley, who is the creator of a comic book series with detective stories that teaches real chemistry. We learned all about her amazing work in the last episode and the impact she's had increasing molecular literacy through her books and other resources her company offers. So if you missed it, just hit the link in the show notes. So Colleen, we're going to jump into the journey segment of our conversation. So this is where we kind of go back start at the beginning and understand how it is you got to where you are. So should be fun and we're looking forward to speaking with you. Okay, great. I'm Happy to be here again.

Awesome. So, did you have a science spark or any science wow moments growing up? What got you interested in chemistry and sort of, you know, wanting to understand molecules and how they interact and how they work?

Kind of. So, um I'll take you back a long time ago, um when the loudspeakers went off in the middle of my seventh grade English class.

Wow.

And there was a muddled announcement that sounded something like school is closing.

Oh,

because it's raining radiation. And and now that was not the exact message.

But what did we do as seventh graders? We ran to the windows, hung them open, hung our heads out, and search the skies for this magical and mystical raining radiation. Like, how cool is that when you're in seventh grade that you're going to see raining radiation?

Oh my goodness.

Um, so We were put on our buses, sent home, school was closed, and um I distinctly remember getting off the bus and our driver instructed us to take our jackets because it was March, so we all had jackets to take our jackets and put them over our heads

to guard us from,

get this, nuclear fallout.

And and I can assure you, none of our jackets were made of lead. But we we put them over our heads like umbrellas and ran home to guard ourselves from this raining radiation.

Raining radiation.

And then and then when I got home, everyone in my family was in front of the TV, very somber. And I'm like, this is the best day ever. School's closed, maybe forever. It's raining radiation. Like, what else good things could happen? And then I find out that

there's this thing called a nuclear power plant that's on the verge of a meltdown and it's so close to home. And I'm like, this is awesome. It's like right around around the corner from my house.

And I didn't know because I'm so excited, right? I'm like, "This keeps getting better." And so I asked my parents like, "What's going on?" And they, you know, they said, "It's very serious and we may have to evacuate." And I'm like, "But why?" And they just said because, right? And so when you get because as a curious 11year-old,

you're like, "Huh? Come on." Like what? What? And so I go back to that event because I had a curiosity with radioactivity and radiation and as you know Poppy and Ray are pelonium and radium radioactive elements in my comic books.

But I also go back to that because I think about that a lot that no one in my community and probably I remember listening to Barbara Walters trying to figure out what she was saying. No one could articulate to me clearly as a very bright 11year-old what was happening.

And I just kept hearing words and I wasn't hearing explanations. I wasn't hearing science. I was just hearing words. And that stuck with me is

we're we're, you know, we're putting grandma on a bus to go to Ohio. Like we're changing our lives. My orthodontist appointment is closed. School's closed. Like what is happening in my life? And no one can tell me why. And and no slight on anybody in the community. But it's because the science was was not understood enough to to explain it. And

99% of the population that experienced that, that was three mile island um which didn't melt down thankfully but there was a near nuclear accident

nobody could explain it right so when we talk about molecular literacy and why I'm passionate about it I go back to that incident that a community should not be responding without understanding and it's easy enough to remedy if the community has a foundation of molecular literacy

yeah

wow that was an exciting story to say the least. It's like looking back at it now, right? And I think you did such a good job also of just really explaining what that feels like as an 11year-old. Yeah. I mean, I can't even imagine looking back at it now and thinking about what what you went through during that time and also just the like you're saying the lack of information and the lack of understanding and how that can also just make things so much more scary, right? because you don't really have a good understanding of what's going on. So imagine as a kid, but then also the adults around you, they just know there's something bad, but we don't know exactly what it is. Yeah.

Yeah, that was quite the story, Colleen. I I agree. Um I think definitely experiencing some things is good to be a kid, right? Because just as you're saying, Fatu, the adults, they were probably scared even though they didn't really understand it, right, Colleen? But you were just like Oh my god, there's all these exciting things happening. So, sometimes it's good to experience things as a kid and then, you know, be able to experience it without like all the fear and all of that and then go back and look at it and be like, "Wow, yeah, I that happened. I went through that."

Yeah.

Yeah. It was amazing.

Yeah. And also not what I was expecting, Colleen.

No, it caught both of us off guard.

Yeah. It's raining radiation. So tell us more about your career journey. How did your career plans evolve over time from that, you know, really memorable experience that you had as an 11-year-old? So what did you want to become, you know, when you were in middle school, in high school, in undergrad? How did things progress as you grew up?

Yeah, it was complicated, right? I was not expected to go to college. Um, and I was not ex Yeah. expected to go to college in my education. Um, let's just say education was not valued. Um,

so that that's difficult when you're growing up when you love to read and you you love school and nobody else in your world does

and then and then you tell your family you want to go to college and they look at you crosseyed.

Um, so, you know, again, there's this this, you know, looking at me now and like, of course, she had this family that was like, you know, she, you know, all it's like, no, it wasn't like that at all. So um I I knew I wanted to keep learning. I loved learning. I loved reading and I particularly loved chemistry because of the problem solving and the puzzles.

And um there was no pathway for me to do that. So I did join the army um as a way to find a pathway to get to um college someday. So um that was that was my journey um to do that. So when I was told there's no way to do it um there's the military says, "Oh, but we have this thing that can give you a full scholarship if you join up and sign here." So, um, yeah, that I, uh, had a, a military career that was able to fund my education.

Excellent. And so, um, did you have an idea of what you wanted to study, particularly when you had an interest in going to college, going to college, or was it just kind of I'll go and I'll, you know, this will be a next adventure and I'll I'll Oh yeah. No, I loved chemistry in high school. Um I always tell stories about um I was on the swim team and um on buses to swim meets I would do everybody's chemistry homework. They would just keep handing it to me

and I was just so excited to do it. I just would sit there. Okay, yours is done. Yours is done. And and for me it was so much fun. I just I didn't know I mean obviously there's some in integrity issues there but at the time it was just help my friends was something they didn't want to do and they couldn't understand. So, I just kept doing it. So, I I really really loved it to the point where

um I knew that's what I wanted to study in college as well as I wanted to study more chemistry and learn more about this this area of science.

Wonderful.

I wish I had you in um in my in my class colleagues.

My I'm still friends with my friends from well that incident at three mile island at even younger and they always say that. They're like, "We wouldn't have got through high school without you.

You're a good friend to have, Colleen."

Um, so you told us all about your wonderful comic book series in the last episode. Can you tell us more of the story behind it? Um, so, you know, during your journey, how did that idea first occur to you and how did that idea take shape over time, you know, to write a comic book? Did you have an interest in comics? previously, did you think that um you know a comic would be a really creative way to kind of um have people learn about chemistry? How did how did you put all those things together?

Yeah, I I would say it was um definitely over decades of time that it kind of unfolded and it started when I was teaching organic chemistry and I was um using Winnie the Pooh characters to represent different um group seven elements. So like for example, I would say Florine is like Piglet, like small and clingy and doesn't want to leave. And broine is like Winnie the Pooh, like big and puffy and jolly and just will like walk off in the 100 acre woods all by himself. And so there's this concept called leaving group. And Florine's a poor leaving group. It's clingy and Broine's a better leaving group. Um so I would I would um tell them all the I would I would put characters to

elements in molecules all the time because of the fact when in our previous episode we talked about the neural pathways once I realized that I needed a bridge to the to my students imagination the bridge had to be through these kind of characters so

the characters evolved over time um and then the analogies and the characters would become my own and then I developed my own kind of characters but I never thought I I I never really thought I was going to write a comic book. Um,

I wasn't into comic books. It's really the only format that um matched what I was trying to accomplish. So, I tried first to write it as a textbook

and nobody would publish that. So, that fell flat.

So, I have I have a textbook version of it from 2015. Oh, interesting.

With with different characters. Um, the same same kind of characters but different a little bit different. And then that evolved into too. I took a lot of I went to workshops on writing, um, creative writing. I took a ton of classes online. I spent my weekends at retreats for for writers, learned how to be a writer and and tried to create them into children's picture books and that fell flat.

And I remember a reviewer saying, "You have so much dialogue." Um, so you need to use a dialoguerrich platform. And the dialogriich platform is a comic book. So the comic book was kind of the last thing that I stumbled on to as something that would deliver the content in the way that I wanted.

Yeah.

With the characters I wanted.

That's that's an amazing evolution. Wow.

Yeah. Uh Colleen, your perseverance in in Oh my god. I think people needed to hear what it took for you to get to this point you are now with these successful comic books. I mean, decades long journey. Decades. Yes. Yes.

You started as a textbook. You went to What did you do after picture books? I mean, yeah.

Things just kept falling flat. You kept failing and it didn't put you down. You just kept trying, right?

Oh, it put me down.

Okay.

But it didn't stop you. It didn't keep you down.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when something's inside of you, it it you keep going, but you know, it it it it's a it's a journey for sure.

Yeah.

That's phenomenal. And now now it's working. out, right? And so you found you found the thing to make it successful and we're so happy that you you kept going at it. So, wow. Thank you. That's amazing.

Yeah.

Did you have any influential mentors during your career journey?

Yeah, I've had quite a few, but I would say um when I finally did get to college, I I one of my best friends in my chemistry class and still a close friend to this day, she said, "What are you doing this summer?" And I said, "Oh, I don't know." And she said, said, "I'm going to stay and do research." And I said, "What's research?"

And so she said, "This is what research is." And I still didn't understand it. She said, "You have to find" And she said, "You have to find a professor and they have to say, yes, you can do research with them." So I remember there was a young woman in our department who drove this convertible Mustang

and I'm like, "Wow, she's pretty cool." I didn't know anything about her except that. So I just camped out in front of her office because this is before email, y'all. So So, so this is this is pre- email. So, I just camped out in front of her office hoping someday that she would she would eventually have to come back to her office, right? So, I just sat there and did my homework on the floor in front of her office and she showed up and I stood up and I just said, "I wanted to do research with you." And she kind of looked at me crosseyed like, "I don't even know who you are and why you're sitting here." And I felt I was like, "But my friend told me to come."

And anyway, she was very sweet and she showed me what she does for reason. research and told me about herself and um allowed me as a freshman to uh spend summers and the rest of my undergraduate career doing research with her. And then as I enjoyed it more and more and I really love doing research, uh she said, "You should get a PhD." And I again I was like, "What's that?

Yeah, what's that?"

I was like, "I don't know." Again, I don't come from this world. So I'm like, "What's a PhD?" And she said, "You should apply here, here, and here, and here. These professors do research like we're doing. and blah blah blah. I'm like, "Okay." So, um just a lot of people suggesting things to me that I just kind of stumbled into, but um her name's um Emma Goldman and she was uh just a amazing mentor and now close friend.

Oh, I love that. I also feel like we need to give a shout out to the best friends who are always pulling people to doing research because that is definitely a theme that we've noticed. husbands are always looking out for you. So, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. I really like that.

Fantastic.

Considering your journey, Colleen, what advice would you give your younger self?

Oh, boy, that's tough. Um, I I think it would be my middle-aged self. I think my younger self was just kind of on this like super fun journey of chemistry. I raced through graduate school because I I didn't I didn't know what else to do. too. Like, why wouldn't you go to lab on a Sunday? Like, where else are you going to go? Like, it's so fun there. Like, I really had a good time through all of that. So, um I would just say as my older self to keep that fun and you get as a as an assistant professor trying to get tenure, you get

um burdened by tenure, you get burdened by funding, you get burdened by grants, you get burdened by so much admin. administrative stuff and you kind of lose that

um it becomes

h boy it becomes scary when it wasn't scary before like am I going to get tenure is this paper going to get published am I going to get this grant

and u you kind of lose that so I would find a way to keep that

playfulness that we had in in graduate school in my posttock

wonderful

yeah keep the awe and wonder

yeah

I love it

yeah

and that's exactly what you're doing with these comic books though, right?

Yeah, I got it back. Yeah,

you got your groove back.

I got my groove back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Middle age kind of like sucks it out a little bit, you know.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

So, what is next for Chemistry Colleen and kids's chemical solutions?

Well, I would love to finish the series. The I've got the what I call the molecular literacy bundle done

um which gets um readers to become what I say the equivalent of like being able to travel to a foreign country and get around, right? But you probably couldn't have a convers a deep meaningful conversation with someone, but you can certainly be comfortable in the country.

Um but the rest of the series um there's six more books planned. Nice.

And um and so then I'll have an entire semester of freshman chemistry scaffolded um college level chemistry scaffolded um with that that series of 10. So I am really want to get back to to that. And the only thing holding me up right now is funding um because it's incredibly expensive um to create these comic books to pay for the artists what they're worth. Um so it's it's not paying me, but uh I have to pay a lot of folks um to get these out into the world. So um

I just need more funding. That's what's next is more funding and more books and let's get this series finished.

Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. Know, let us know anything we can do to help, Colleen, because we are definitely very supportive of your mission and what you're doing.

Um, one thing that we do for all of our our guests who have businesses is we offer to partner with them. So, if you want to do that as well, we're happy to,

you know, do that and and hopefully, you know, get it out into the world as much as possible. So, anyone who visits our website will immediately see. So, that's one way that we can

Yeah. Yeah. I would appreciate Yeah. Anything. And, you know, just just talking to folks. That's why I I do this. I want to talk to as many folks as possible. And um you know, my business model has been funded by me up until this point. And

um I you know, I'm hoping sales of the molecular literacy bundle will then

go into you know the next the next set and the next set and the next set. So if we can just keep it rolling forward in that model, we'll we'll be good.

Yeah. I mean you have approached us I will say with the grit and tenacity of your, you know, your mentor Marie Curi, right? Yes.

I mean, this story, it took you decades and decades to get to this point, as you said, funding it yourself. So, you definitely learned the lessons from her and it sounds like you lived your life following those those lessons. So,

okay, we are going to wrap up our beautiful conversation today with the very last section, which we like to call lifellight. So that's our homage to Pop Rocks because we talked about Pop Rocks and you know the the last episode when we talked about food. So I was like it's so funny we do pop pop in our lifeline section like it all comes together. It all comes together people. So in this final segment this is just our fun way to end the conversation and also just to give a view of our guests outside of what you do for your work. And I'm happy that you already talked about you wanting to sort of bring the fun back into your life. So, you know, you kind of lost it in middle age and you're bringing it back. So, Colleen, can you please share with us and with our audience what brings light and enjoyment to your life outside of your work?

Uh, spending time with my family and friends. Um, for sure. Um, I've got a 24year-old son who's a fashion designer

and um Yeah. And so I love watching him sew and his creative process and going to his fashion shows and um just really um

he calls me his mamaager. Um so

you know I'm I'm sitting front and center at New York Fashion Week, you know, as mama and watching him his models go down the runway at Sony Hall and um just really um it's super fun and just to watch him shine. and and do his thing and really like I didn't know um that whole fashion world but again talk about creativity and science it's all there and

yeah

from hair and makeup to the choreography he has to do and the lighting

and um just his vision for storytelling through a runway show and what that means

and you know is music production. So there's so much that goes into it. So that's been a really fun tangential hobby. as a mama. Um to kind of just sit on the sidelines and and lend support where I where I can and and also to have zero expertise in something that your child is doing is really fun because

you get to learn.

There's only so much Yeah. Yeah. I can learn but I'm like I don't know. Like sounds good to me.

Um so that's that's been really fun. And you know I I do love spending time with kids. Uh I'm also now have a full-time position as an elementary school science teacher

and um I call them my littles and I just love going into my littles and they're just so cute and curious and um those are good days. I mean when you talk about bringing joy and all back spend time with fouryear-olds to 10 year olds okay and um they're super fun and funny and um you just never know what's next. So it's brought a lot of joy back into my life being um making sure that my life is full of different generations at all times.

I love that. I love that. Like intergenerational learning, right?

Yep.

Yeah. Definitely a good way to live and and that's one of the things that um is so positive about intergenerational living too, right? Where you have all these different generations living under the same roof, which is much rarer in America than it is in other parts of the world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um so, but for with your son. It's so interesting that he it kind of sounds like almost like he went a completely different route than you did like everyone would say, right? He's in sort of fashion and art and you are, you know, hardcore science chemistry, but you guys really do sort of come together with that creative thing like you were saying, right? You've got your creative process with your writing and the comic books and he's got this creative process which is fashion showed

and so it's really cool that you guys kind of can connect, I think.

in in that way. Yeah. Do you share like little creative tips.

We do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We share different ideas and so, you know, he's um

he does a lot of screen printing and we talk about like what it takes to to clean, you know, the paint off and what are some of the, you know, some of the some of the solvents that they use aren't very safe and I talk about that and we talk about, well, what other solvents could you use to clean your screen printing with? And wow, you know, so there's a lot of intersection and he, you know, he took my class, so he knows some chemistry.

Ah,

nice. Nice.

I love that he took your class.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a requirement. Yeah.

Colleen, thank you again so much for coming on to share your story with us. Um, it was an absolute pleasure hearing about your journey getting these comic books finally out, your mission, you know, improving molecular literacy. Definitely incredibly inspiring. So, we look forward to following up with you in the future to hear about the next phase in your journey.

Well, thank you and thanks for putting together this podcast. I think what you're doing is really meaningful and as a storyteller listening to more stories. I'm I listen to podcasts all the time

and they've really changed my life. So, keep doing what you all are doing. It's really important.

Thank you. Wonderful.

Thank you so much. And so, once again, listeners, you can reach Colleen on her website, kidschemicalsolutions.com and we will be sure to share that in the show notes and put a link to it as well so you guys can easily access it and reach out to Colleen and you know get some get some molecular literacy going in your family and in your friends and in your in your circles, right?

Yeah. Yes.

And on that note, we'd like to thank our listeners for supporting the podcast. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. Reviews help us by increasing visibility for the show. And as always, you can reach us by email. lovescienceodcast@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time. Bye everybody.

Bye everyone.

They’re like we wouldn't have got through high school without you.