Science Demonstrations at a Shopping Center
Previous Science Week Posts: Opening Ceremony, Our First National Science Week School Visits, 1500 High School Students
After our high school visit, we were prepared for whatever National Science Week sent our way.
What’s Jesse doing loitering on the sidewalk? Where are we?
Take a bustling mini-mall in Africa and throw in a couple of weird Americans with lab coats and chemicals. What do you get? Confusion:
Watch the funny white people play with chemicals!
One of the demonstrations we did involved using an indicator to turn a pink solution clear. Because I’m a huge ham, this became me being a Jew (like Jesus) and turning “water” into “wine”:
Then, we neutralized the “wine” clear again:
As the afternoon went on, a crowdgathered:
The burning-not-burning ethanol-soaked money was a huge hit:
Check out our Department of Science and Technology mandated signup sheet to prove we actually did what we claimed:
This is Jet, a sweet clothing store:
We wanted to use their electricity. The dapper man on the right is my boss at the Department of Education:
And so, we became the first people in South African history to run a Van Der Graff generator in a mini-mall:
Our parting shot was a thermite reaction. I’m not going to give instructions here, but its hot enough to melt metal:
Can anyone think of a good reason to not do this in a busy shopping center? I can’t!
And having scared everyone, we were on our way. Check out our science mobile:
From left to right that’s me, our Department of Education counterpart and minder Sydney, Volunteer Jesse, and Volunteer Shilpa. Check out our trunk of experiments!
1 Comment
Rahul Malhotra says:
Fire!
01 Jan 12 @ 5pm
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