Scientific crowd-pleaser: Chemistry and science show dazzles children at WVU

Dec. 11—You could hear Michael Faraday's intellectual spirit and sense of discovery in the molecules Saturday morning at WVU's Clark Hall.

It came in the form of all those "oohs and ahhs " emanating from Room 101 — not to mention the bouts of laughing and extended rounds of applause that also ensued.

Faraday (1791-1867) was a renowned British scientist and forerunner to Mr. Wizard, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Carl Sagan and anyone else who ever brought a sense of fun to beakers and funnels of the research lab.

He was also the inspiration of Saturday's annual "Children's Chemistry Show, " which has been a seasonal crowd-pleasing staple for more than 20 years by the C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry.

That's the show where serious scientific principles do pratfalls, as it were, by the white coat contingent who don't mind blending in a little slapstick with their scholarship.

Wienies instantly winterized in liquid nitrogen (a balmy 325 degrees below zero) have been known to shatter into pieces in past shows — after being flung with glee against walls by the people, who, well might have more degrees than a thermometer.

From hot dog to colder-than-cold dog, as it were.

Unopened cans of Coke have been known to float on the surface of beakers full of water in Room 101, and whole constructs of fanciful snowmen have gone up in flames for the cause (courtesy of cellulose soaked in nitric acid).

While most of the experiments are of the "Don't try this at home, " variety, the idea, organizers say, is to get impressionable young minds to take the spirit of science and wonder of just what all those elements on the Earth and across the cosmos can do.

That's what Faraday had in mind when he launched his first lectures for children in 1825 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

He did bring the fun, but it was also in British, stiff-upper-lip kind of way, since he was, indeed, quite serious about his work.

The scientist's pioneering research in electromagnetism led to electric motors and the use of the then-new technology in the research lab.

Faraday was a formidable researcher who discovered benzene, a compound that would be used in the making of day-to-day products such as nylon.

He was a creative and resource inventor who came up with the Bunsen burner.

And he coined high-tech names of the recent past that are instantly recognizable to non-scientists, such as electrode, ion and cathode.

Again, making science accessible to those who don't wear the white lab coat just may have been what he did best.

He said as much during his first lecture, all of 197 years ago.

"Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature, " Faraday told his audience. It would be a theme to follow.

After that first WVU children's show in 2010, Terry Gullion, the chemistry professor who handled most of the inaugural experiments, agreed — just in a slightly more earthbound way.

"If we got one or two kids interested today, that's good, " he said.

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