Did you know that, depending on your diet, it's estimated that you may eat up a credit card's worth of plastic a week? This is one of the many concerning facts that students learned during a recent Schrödinger-run session at a science camp, coordinated by BioBus—an organization on a mission to help minority, female, and low-income students in New York City discover, explore, and pursue science. The summer camp was another plank in Schrödinger’s ongoing commitment to STEM education.

Dr. Jenny Chambers, Schrödinger senior scientist II and education and outreach team member, led two sessions about how plastic pollution—and microplastics in particular—are a problem for the environment. Students used Schrödinger’s Materials Science Platform to evaluate different types of plastics for their tendency to break down into microplastics. Then, the students discussed how the computational models of different polymers could be used to design new plastics with properties that would make them less likely to break down into microplastics.