Snap, Crackle and Pop- Chemistry!
Holly Ratcliff
Mrs. Howatt’s advanced chemistry classes gave Peavy’s first graders a magic science show on Friday, May 15! Filled with fires, changing colors, and mysterious gooey stuff, the science show was entertaining and educational.
The consensus of the first graders was that the show was "really fun!" Coincidentally, that was the consensus of the high school juniors putting on the show too.
"It was fun," junior Matthew Mitchell said. "It was a great experience, a great time. We got to have fun with the kids and inspire them to love science and chemistry.”
And love science and chemistry they did! One first grader was so incredibly excited, she just could not contain herself.
"The bottle that caught on fire scared the pee out of me!" first grader Kamryn said. "Like really, I peed my pants! It was so cool!"
While that may not have been the desired response, it is just one example of the unique experience the chemistry class encountered on their quest to share the joy of science with young minds.
"It was an amazing opportunity," junior Ramsey Campbell said. "It was great to do because a lot of the kids who performed the show want to see about becoming teachers and really liked to have that experience."
Indeed, the show proved to be just as exciting and educational for the performing high schoolers as it was for the audience of first graders.
"It allowed us to realize how much we had actually learned during our high school careers compared to where we once were," junior Tarek Zaher said. "We’re able to not only know this knowledge, but share it with the little children as well, which is pretty much the best thing you can do with it. I think it was productive for everyone involved. For us, and the teachers, and the students, it was amazing.”
The teachers and administration present did enjoy the show, for the interesting science experiments along with other things.
"I liked all of the experiments, but I liked seeing the former students too," first grade teacher Ms. Futch said. "Seeing how they had all grown up. Ya’ll have come a long way.”
Beyond the science, reminiscing, and looking forward to the future, there was an underlying theme to this show.
"Everything is better with Disney!" Campbell said.
Yes, each experiment was set to a Disney theme song that reflected the content of the experiment. A snow-making experiment was set to a Frozen theme song while a glowing substance was set to a Rapunzel theme song based on the lanterns in Tangled.
“Ramsey’s experiment produced a smoke cloud like a genie,” Mrs. Howatt said. “As soon as we saw it we immediately thought of Aladdin and the whole thing just sparked from there. Kids love science, kids love Disney, so we put it all together, and it’s like Walt Disney World!”
It may be like Disney World, but the chemistry class at Hudson definitely put on a more fantastic science show to the joy of Peavy’s first graders.
“It was just really so much fun,” Campbell said. “I want to come back and do it again as a senior!”
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