Many students from the various science degree fields participated in last week’s science carnival at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School. This included students from other colleges as well. The turn out was amazing! The playground was littered with children and students in lab coats. Basically, you get to walk around and students perform a scientific fete per say. Here are just some of the demonstrations.

Representing the water cycle using a mini ocean,
land mass, and paper towel cloud. 
                                                                                                      

This is the sort of food you can expect to find at the science carnival. They were making grape soda using artificial grape flavoring, artificial stevia sweetener, artificial purple dye, and dry ice. The dry ice made this station awesome because it looks like you are drinking a science experiment. And you are! They also had strawberry caviar and orange noodles made out of agar agar.


The next generation genius and also the
smallest lab coat I have ever seen.
This guy was exploring the thrills of excavating
archeological finds. He was digging it!

Here is Stephanie and Rosa demonstrating the 
boo bubble, the ‘boo’ part coming from when 
you touched it, the bubble filled with dry ice 
vapor would burst and the people working 
the station would say boo! Because it 
looked like you had just touched a ghost. 








                                     
                                     



                             Here you see Professor Swig and a student performing a magic trick using the indicator phenolphthaline, dilute sodium hydroxide, and vinegar which are mixed to produce the appearance and disappearance of a pink color. It was a magical experience.


















The electric pickle was a particular favorite of mine because of my love for pickles. The pickle is placed across the electrodes of an isolation transformer resulting in the pickle glowing from sparks within the pickle.





Here is a dinosaur feeling the pickle’s warmth after it had been lit up.








Here Emily was preparing a child favorite; slime. It was a solution of polyvinyl alcohol in water mixed with laundry borax leading to the formation of slime. It jiggles, is colorful, and fun. It was a perfect experiment for the carnival. 







I hope watching your fellow students having this much fun has inspired many to want to share their love of science. I highly encourage all students and faculty to participate next year, because who knows you could spark the next Einstein's interest in the exciting field of chemistry. Also, everybody was has a good time, and it is a great excuse for many people to all wear their lab coats outside at the same time. Science is awesome!

by Sammy Freitag