MORGANTOWN — In the 19th century Michael Faraday, a British scientist, would demonstrate science around Christmas time.
A WVU chemistry professor started similar demonstrations for area school students in Morgantown.
The sounds of “oohs and ahhs” filled a lecture hall in Clark Hall Saturday at the annual Children’s Chemistry Show.
Terry Gullion started the chemistry demonstrations when his oldest son was in kindergarten at Suncrest Primary. His son’s teacher asked if the children could take a field trip to the chemistry department.
Gullion did these demonstrations for about five years before deciding to turn the program into a public event.
The first show was meant to happen in December 2009, but the weather got in the way — a few times — and it didn’t happen until spring 2010.
The shows are open to everyone, kids, parents and other adults. The experiments have grown over the years, but the reactions are part of what the show is all about.
“You want something to either make a big mess or a big noise or a lot of light,” Gullion said.
Gullion said he rotates through the experiments, and has collected a whole library of things he shows the kids. He tries to work in a new experiment every year to keep things interesting for the students.
“Over time you learn, ‘OK, some of them don’t work so well’ or the crowd doesn’t seem to get into it so much that they just kind of get put on the dud list,” he said.
One experiment was creating a glow stick. While the lights dimmed, kids waved their own glow sticks as demonstrators created them via chemical reaction.
The grand finale was a snowman made of cellulose soaked in nitric acid that went up in a flash of fire. Gullion said getting that ready took about a week, but it’s something they’ll likely do every year because people liked it so much. He said it can take one to two weeks to prepare for one show.
Kids also got to work with WVU chemistry students on hands-on experiments.
Gullion said he believes people should be exposed to different things, and that’s not limited to chemistry or science because you never know whose imagination it’s going to catch.
He recalled a field trip he took to Virginia Tech when he was very young. The kids got to explore the geology department and he remembers being shown a seismograph.
“It stuck in my mind. I didn’t become a geologist, but it was fascinating. It was interesting,” he said.
He said that’s the whole idea of his demonstrations. Some of it is just entertainment, but part of it is allowing people to explore the ideas further.
“I think, as a university, its part of our job to make people kind of aware and do outreach like this so that they can get an experience in it,” he said.
