A science/chemistry show

Greetings fellow forum members

For my work and to attract new student to our school, I get to perform a chemistry show 4 times in one day. I know there are tons of good reactions and things to show for such a thing, almost too many to choose from, but I was wondering what you guys would really like for a crowd of 30 12-year-olds and their parents. Keep in mind that my audience usually has no to very little knowledge about chemistry, so the reactions need to be visual and kind of exciting/spectacular.
I don't want just explosions and fire and so on, I partly want to show that chemistry is more than blowing everything up.

What I've come up with so far:

- Letting conc. sulfuric acid burn a hole through a filter paper
- Hitting a tiny(safe) amount of Armstrong's Mix(red P with KClO4 - EDIT: KClO3) with a hammer(any sugesstions about what amount I could use?)
- Conc. sulfuric acid and sugar
- Cremating a gummybear with molten KClO4 - EDIT: KClO3
- Cobalt or manganese chameleon
- Nitric Acid and copper
- Oscillating/clock reaction
- Formation of lead(II) iodide from two colourless liquids(potassium iodide and and lead(II) nitrate).
- Showing why you should not try to put out an (frying) oil fire with water.
- pH indicators in nature(spraying a flower with ammonia solution, Hydrangeaceae/Hortensia maybe?).
- Making 'fireflies' with ammonium dichromate and conc. ammonia(maybe, still debating whether this may be too hazardous).
- Milk and cola(makes the fosfates in cola precipitate out)
- Creating ammonium chloride clouds by putting a beaker with conc. hydrochloric acid and conc. ammonia next to eachother).
- Fluorescein in UV-light.

Any more suggestions? Ideas on how to 'bring the message' to my audience?
I have to fill roughly 45minutes with the show.






[Edited on 15-12-2014 by Jylliana]

[Edited on 15-12-2014 by Jylliana]

[Edited on 15-12-2014 by Jylliana]

I just made fluorescein today. Tomorrow i'm going to try to write something with it and make it appear with my blacklight. If that doesn't work I'll just show it in a large beaker.
Bioluminescence is something i've never looked into. I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks for all the advice. I corrected the mistakes in my OP. I will definitely include a few demonstrations you have suggested.
I don't have acces to liquid nitrogen



[Edited on 15-12-2014 by Jylliana]

Quote: Originally posted by MrHomeScientist

This is a great opportunity! I do science outreach for my job actually - we bring a science stage show to local elementary schools to show them cool stuff in chemistry, electricity, and physics. Your age group is just slightly older than ours, so our lineup would still be great for your event. Our show is also 45 minutes long. The chemistry experiments I do are: - Chemical traffic light (a variation on the blue bottle) - Elephant toothpaste (everyone's favorite) And terribly messy. Not a problem for once, but 4 times a day is something to be taken into consideration. - Glow stick reaction. Good one. I'm not sure if I have the right chemicals for it, but I'll keep it in mind. - Sulfur hexafluoride's effect on the voice I don't have SF6, unfortunately. Otherwise I would've done it - Barking Dog reaction See below. These make up about half the show. Let me know if you have any questions on these and I can send you detailed preparation and demonstration procedures. Important points for such an event: - The key for this age group is to keep it simple, flashy, and big. - Keep in mind that, depending on how your room is set up, kids may excitedly run up to your table after the demos. For me, this rules out anything overly hazardous that they may pick up or knock over. - Make sure your demo is easily visible to someone in the back of the room. - Have an explanation ready that is simple enough for your audience to get the gist of. - Your venue determines the experiments you can do. Small classroom (small demos ok) or large auditorium/cafeteria (small demos bad)? What sort of ventilation? Do you have a stage to physically separate you from your audience? Outdoors or indoors? If anything must be done outdoors, weather may affect or cancel your demos. - Do your demos need the lights off? Do you have a helper that can control the lights for you? - Be sure to have safety equipment and highlight its importance to the kids - goggles, gloves, lab coat. Also have a fire extinguisher for fires and any neutralization materials for spill control (baking soda for acids, vinegar for bases, etc.). The main goal of our program is to get them interested in science by showing them cool stuff, so they will go back to their classroom and ask the teacher for more science. A link to our website: www.sciencebrothers.org Thanks for the advice the classroom is of average size. Wider than it is deep. The ceiling is about 3m high and the space is roughly 10m wide and 8m deep. I'll think of spill control solutions. I didn't intend for the kids to actively participate in the show. I expect it to be more of a watch-only thing. Some constructive criticism on your ideas: - Letting conc. sulfuric acid burn a hole through a filter paper >> Cool, but very small scale that will be hard to see from far away. - Hitting a tiny(safe) amount of Armstrong's Mix(red P with KClO4 - EDIT: KClO3) with a hammer(any sugesstions about what amount I could use?) >>A little unpredictable for my taste, but I don't have experience with this mix. It's something I would love to try, especially the way someone showed me made an impression I won't forget for a while. - Conc. sulfuric acid and sugar >>Very cool, but produces a lot of steam and could spatter concentrated acid around. I wouldn't do this indoors. Fumehood. I have a lot of space and a great working fumehood. I'll close the 'window' right after the H2SO4 is added. - Cremating a gummybear with molten KClO4 - EDIT: KClO3 >>This is a big hit. Also produces lots of smoke and steam - must be done outside. Fumehood + closed window as a safety shield. - Cobalt or manganese chameleon >>Haven't actually heard of this one. - Nitric Acid and copper >>NOx fumes mean this must be done outside. Also this is likely too small scale. A 1liter beaker in a fumehood schould do the trick. I've done that before and the scale was good. - Oscillating/clock reaction >>Great demo but tough to explain to kids. Also produces iodine vapor near the end which must be dealt with. Good point. Am going to think about this one. - Formation of lead(II) iodide from two colourless liquids(potassium iodide and and lead(II) nitrate). >>Definite winner! High visibility and easy to explain. Be sure to quickly cap and hide away the toxic lead solution in case kids run up to your table. I don't expect they will, but I'll keep it in mind. - Showing why you should not try to put out an (frying) oil fire with water. >>Sounds terribly dangerous with young kids around. Obviously this is an outside-only demo. Fumehood. Have done this one before on imo safe scale. There is a hazard, but not that much and I'll keep a special fire exinguisher close by. - pH indicators in nature(spraying a flower with ammonia solution, Hydrangeaceae/Hortensia maybe?). >>Is the color change instantaneous? I thought this was more a slow change based on pH of the soil. This one I've never tried myself, but Steve Spangler on Youtube once showed an instant colour change on a flower. Unfortunately can't find the video anymore. It wasn't the one where he first dipped the flower in phenolphtalien. - Making 'fireflies' with ammonium dichromate and conc. ammonia(maybe, still debating whether this may be too hazardous). >>Conc. ammonia fumes would be my only concern. These can fill up a room pretty quick. The carcinogenity of the hexavalent chromium is my biggest concern. Especially because the demo itself can be quite messy and if you're not careful you'll cover you fumehood with Cr(VI). - Milk and cola(makes the fosfates in cola precipitate out) >>Great! Quick, easy to explain, and is something they can try at home. - Creating ammonium chloride clouds by putting a beaker with conc. hydrochloric acid and conc. ammonia next to eachother). >>Good as long as fumes are controlled and the lighting is right. They need to be able to see the wisps of smoke from the back of the room. Black backdrop and a spotlight would be a good idea. Doing this in a closed environment. A glass bell to be precise. - Fluorescein in UV-light. >>Great! High visibility and another one they can try at home. To highlight the importance of proper ventilation, I have an anecdote. We used to do the standard barking dog gardul mentions, but as you can see it produces SO2 as a product. This would almost always give the presenters headaches, since we are right next to it. At one show, these fumes wafted out into the audience and there were lots of coughing kids. I put a stop to that demo after that experience, until I could make it safer. We now use a little boric acid dissolved in methanol instead of CS2, which produces almost no fumes. Far safer for the audience, and much easier to clean the tube out afterward (no sulfur)! I don't have CS2 on hand, so it'll be done with methanol or ethanol. Probably with boric acid for the colour.

I just saw your show promo! Amazing! You're using a very different approach than I intended.
This is where I got my inspiration from. One of my former teachers and an awesome role model
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha61ApJMiTk
I made the video myself, so it's not so 'promo-y' as yours. It's just to give you an impression .






[Edited on 16-12-2014 by Jylliana]

Thanks everyone for all the good advice and suggestions. I think I can make a nice 'show script' with it. Also it's nice to read about safety precautions or ways to show stuff to my audience in a way I hadn't thought of myself, yet.

I just watched the whole show too. I see that he did a nylon demo.

Thanks, Jylliana! It's lots of fun. Those videos are a bit old and we should probably update them - our 'stage presence' is much better now and we have a new gigantic (~3 ft) tesla coil that plays music.

Since you're doing this in a science classroom, that makes things a lot easier. We have to restrict what we do because we travel, and never know where they'll have us set up. Access to a fume hood removes a lot of my concerns about the demos you want to do. Definitely do the gummy bear experiment! I always tell the kids that this is what happens in your stomach if you eat too much candy

The way I do elephant toothpaste is to put the peroxide in a tall 500mL plastic graduated cylinder, and put this in a wide, shallow Rubbermaid container to catch the foam. Adding the KI solution causes the foam to shoot straight up a couple feet, then fall back down into the plastic tub (usually). Makes cleanup pretty simple, if you have an assistant! Our formula is 125mL 35% H₂O₂ plus some liquid dish soap in the cylinder and ~13g KI dissolved in ~12mL H₂O in a small beaker.

The old science show that we modeled ours on used to buy lots of regular glow sticks from the party supply store and carefully cut them open to gather the two liquids inside. They'd pour these into separate containers and combine during the show. Really tedious and time consuming, but it's an idea for you. We buy our chemicals direct from the manufacturer now.

Have someone take pictures or video!

Can't wait to see it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92RydZDDe_8
Video, with english subtitles


...funny that the show didn't end up with a single one of the ideas I opened this topic with

...also I had to cut it down to 15 minutes. The organizer thought 45 minutes was far too long..

[Edited on 5-2-2015 by Jylliana]

Nice video!

I work with a campus group, SPARK, which is part of the ACS Student Affiliates.

Our show is organized as follows:

A play with a mad scientist, chemical superhero, and a confused principal who knows absolutely nothing about chemistry (I played the mad scientist last time because I have the best evil laugh ) It has plenty of demos and audience participation.

Then we have demo tables that show different concepts in chemistry. At our last show we had pH, polymer formation, and supersaturation with sodium acetate.

We're going to be doing a show for 500-1000 kids in March, which we need to figure out how to organize.

Also, there will be a show tomorrow (I get to play the mad scientist again!) and one next week. The one next week may be structured more like Jylliana's show, as we're going to have the same type of audience.

Quote: Originally posted by Morgan

Yesterday I was misting some methanol into a gallon glass jug and lighting it to see what kind of whoosh it would make. It was a gallon jug such as this and I was using a finger pump sprayer on the mist setting. It makes a pretty good whoosh. http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-18034/Jugs/Glass-Jugs-... After that I decided to get out my platinum on alumina powder 1%. What happened next was quite impressive. I took the smallest amount of the talc-like gray powder and placed it on a small piece of aluminum foil. Then I sprinkled the dust into the top of the methanol vapored jug. For two or three seconds the particles floated down and into the jug glowing like a dozen or so red hot fireflies, seemingly weightless and twinkling in a most mesmerizing fashion. It reminded me of carbon particles burning. And then it happened, the most terrific bang occurred blasting the tiny piece of foil from my fingers like a bomb went off. Luckily the bottle didn't rupture but it was really impressive. It makes a big difference I guess if you light the jug from the inside instead of at the opening and maybe multiple ignitions points played a part as well. It was so sudden and deafeningly loud, from disarming fireflies to a flat out bomb. Not a hint of a rev up or pressure wave forming.

Quote: Originally posted by Deathunter88

Quote: Originally posted by Morgan   Yesterday I was misting some methanol into a gallon glass jug and lighting it to see what kind of whoosh it would make. It was a gallon jug such as this and I was using a finger pump sprayer on the mist setting. It makes a pretty good whoosh. http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-18034/Jugs/Glass-Jugs-... After that I decided to get out my platinum on alumina powder 1%. What happened next was quite impressive. I took the smallest amount of the talc-like gray powder and placed it on a small piece of aluminum foil. Then I sprinkled the dust into the top of the methanol vapored jug. For two or three seconds the particles floated down and into the jug glowing like a dozen or so red hot fireflies, seemingly weightless and twinkling in a most mesmerizing fashion. It reminded me of carbon particles burning. And then it happened, the most terrific bang occurred blasting the tiny piece of foil from my fingers like a bomb went off. Luckily the bottle didn't rupture but it was really impressive. It makes a big difference I guess if you light the jug from the inside instead of at the opening and maybe multiple ignitions points played a part as well. It was so sudden and deafeningly loud, from disarming fireflies to a flat out bomb. Not a hint of a rev up or pressure wave forming. Please don't use a glass vessel when doing the whoosh bottle, there is a high risk of explosion from the pressure and the sudden heat change. Also, the loud bang might had just been because you did not add enough methanol into the bottle. If the oxygen concentration inside is too high, you will get a bang no matter if you added the platinum/alumina or not. <-just a theory form personal experience

Quote: Originally posted by Morgan

I had seen this demonstration before in several forms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5EWVXrW28o#t=3m55s But this one really buzzes before the big bang. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snIv6uSeodU The previous clip with the buzzing hydrogen bomb reminded me of a foot long valved pulsejet I made using a washer and some .003ths blue tempered spring steel for a single petal valve that covered the hole of the washer. I sanded the washer to a mirror smooth finish and the petal valve was perfectly centered and sanded too to removed any burrs. I held the petal valve on with a tiny screw and nut. I'd prime the engine with methanol, coating the insides with a squirt or two and one in the intake for good measure, but careful to not wet the reed too much. I then would light the tail end. A curious thing happened, the flame front WOULDN'T instantly advance down the 1/4 inch plumbing pipe exhaust tube of the pulsejet. On several occasions it would merely buzz ever so quietly for many seconds like a bee inside the tube, then out of nowhere it would kick in and the jet would whine full grease, screaming loud in an instant. Sometimes though the jet would just backfire loudly or just instantly start up as well. And still other times you could hear the flame walking up the tube, building in intensity until it hit the combustion chamber volume I guess which would set it off running. It was really fun to anticipate when the buzzing/gurgling would finally stop and the jet kick in. Sometimes it was almost whisper quiet, the petal valve perhaps moving ever so slightly responding to the bubble/dome of fire residing in the tube, unable to advance down/up the tube. It was a little purring kitten that out of nowhere killed your ears -- in an instant-on pulsejet fashion, much like the hydrogen bomb bee sound, before setting itself off. The tiny pulsejet used 3/4 inch pipe for the combustion chamber necking down to a 1/2 inch section and finally a 1/4 inch exhaust tube sort of like this valveless pulsejet I tinkered with with the same diameter combustion chamber but shorter. When you coat the inside of a narrow diameter tube with alcohol it is often fussy about the flame front wanting to travel the length unless the mixture and air temperature and humidity are just right. Anyway I suppose you could also start a hobby size pulsejet using hydrogen and a stopper in the tailpipe with a pinhole in it and the tail end angled up. Then you could listen to a buzzing delayed bang start ignition and have some methanol fuel feed take over and aspirated in the intake after ignition on the negative pressure phase. It would be a little bit of work to set it up but funny to hear a buzzing hydrogen bomb effect suddenly transition into a buzz bomb burning methanol - a two in one demonstration. Similar in simplicity sans side port and front intake bell reducer and washer petal valve. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3mtr6DuXD0 And a bang start impulse example without the need of starting air to draw in liquid fuel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU3cQ8_upWk Or do a delay hydrogen buzz ignition to fire a can - hydrogen would probably be awfully perky though, I've had the bottom of the can deform just using propane, from concave to convex and it's loud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCppEmcRGCE Hydrogen bomb eggs - a small scale no buzz but a delay effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L03LHMXrda4 [Edited on 24-7-2016 by Morgan]

"Formally it was thought carbon dioxide was poisonous but now the opinion is that it causes death by excluding oxygen."
So thumbing through this book from 1921 there was the topic of the combustible being the supporter of combustion and vice versa. It was an interesting demonstration how the flame could leave one tube and come over to the other or be teased to be somewhere in the middle, and that they used platinum foil to keep the glass tubes from fusing.
And there's this other page 1,857 if you scroll down another page where they used coal gas to illustrate the same thing, having a glass sphere where out the top is a flame of coal gas burning and simultaneously inside the sphere you see a flame of air burning in coal gas.
Anyway, if you scroll down a few pages you can see illustrations of the designs. I guess if you weren't careful setting it up, the sphere would be like one of those hydrogen bomb demonstrations.
Audels engineers and mechanics guide
https://books.google.com/books?id=CPxYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT104&...



[Edited on 25-7-2016 by Morgan]

Quote: Originally posted by Morgan

Patio Heater Glass Tube VS Quartz Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyUtriix_N0

Quote: Originally posted by Morgan

Patio Heater Glass Tube VS Quartz Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyUtriix_N0

Quote: Originally posted by Morgan

"Formally it was thought carbon dioxide was poisonous but now the opinion is that it causes death by excluding oxygen." So thumbing through this book from 1921 there was the topic of the combustible being the supporter of combustion and vice versa. It was an interesting demonstration how the flame could leave one tube and come over to the other or be teased to be somewhere in the middle, and that they used platinum foil to keep the glass tubes from fusing. And there's this other page 1,857 if you scroll down another page where they used coal gas to illustrate the same thing, having a glass sphere where out the top is a flame of coal gas burning and simultaneously inside the sphere you see a flame of air burning in coal gas. Anyway, if you scroll down a few pages you can see illustrations of the designs. I guess if you weren't careful setting it up, the sphere would be like one of those hydrogen bomb demonstrations. Audels engineers and mechanics guide https://books.google.com/books?id=CPxYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT104&... [Edited on 25-7-2016 by Morgan]

Quote: Originally posted by Morgan

This whoosh bottle caught my attention unique for its simplicity and snowy rain. I suppose/obviously you could make a gun using a kind of simple "'guncotton" impulse effect. Or maybe it would be possible to construct a spritely barking dog tube variation on a theme if the fibers didn't dampen feedback too much. Get professor Poliakoff and staff to work on it. Other corridors of exploration might lead to other novel uses for cotton flambe' as ideas evolve - whatever entertaining niche springs to life, meager or not. Cotton and pure oxygen whoosh bottle https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ms62lnFVGaY [Edited on 14-8-2018 by Morgan]