19-03-2025
PSU Altoona professor adds ‘penny experiments' to lesson plan
ALTOONA, Pa. (WTAJ) — More than 200 billion pennies are estimated to be in active circulation throughout the United States today. Last month, President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Treasury to stop minting new pennies, because production costs more than the coin. So for right now, its future hangs in the balance.
Now, a professor at Penn State Altoona is using the coin to educate his students. Dr. William Van Der Sluys an Assistant Teaching Professor of Chemistry has been conducting a few experiments with his students, one of which determines the density of metals.
'The current market value of the zinc that's in our penny and the coating of the copper amounts to about 0.8 cents. So there's a very slight margin, there but, the published cost of making a penny these days is about three and a half cents,' Van Der Sluys said.
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According to the 2024 Annual Report from the U.S. Mint, there's been a decrease in the amount of shipments for the penny.
In 2022, the Mint made 5,387 shipments. 2023 had 4,136, and last year there were 3,172 shipments of pennies. With this and current events, Van Der Sluys said it makes the experiment more relevant for students.
'Our main goal is to find things that students will find interesting. And, it's really important that students have some sort of previous experience with what we're doing. If you don't give them some relevance, then it's not quite as fun to learning experience for them,' Van Der Sluys said.
Professor Van Der Sluys has collected pennies for years, and he said the possibility of losing them is sad. However, he's in favor of stopping the coin's production.
As the saying goes, 'If you love something, let it go.'
'There's lots of good reasons we should not be minting pennies. Environmentally, it's probably not the best thing to be doing. But I would say, copper is a very valuable metal in terms of electronic materials, and we could be doing other things with that metal,' Van Der Sluys noted.
For the experiment, the professor cuts and dissolves pennies, for educational purposes. He has a goal of publishing the study to encourage his students even more.
*All forms of currency in the United States, including bills and coins, are protected by federal law. Intentionally mutilating, defacing, or rendering U.S. currency unfit for reissue is illegal.*
'Understanding the various types of reactions, balancing reactions quantitatively determine the amounts of various elements in a sample. Those are all skills that can translate into engineering jobs. Other scientific jobs,' Van Der Sluys said.
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