Museum to let you be a kid again

Now it's ok to play with your food

By Danae DeShazer

Friday, March 16, 2007

If students aren’t checking out something exotic for spring break, they might still be able to experience explosions, fiber optics, and even glowing pickles at the Natural History Museum’s science event, Playing With Your Food.

Playing With Your Food, March 19-24, will offer a dozen hands-on experiments for people of all ages, all involving everyday food items like pickles, cornstarch, eggs and Jell-O. The experiments include egg tosses, an oil and water lava lamp, light experiments with Jell-O, exploding plastic bags filled with baking soda and marshmallow missiles.

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Anything that involves fire, people will automatically be interested in

-Dawn Kirchner, museum educator

The museum has offered spring break events for four consecutive years and has drawn up to 3,000 visitors each year, said Teresa MacDonald, director of education at the museum. MacDonald chose “food” for this year’s topic because patrons will be familiar with it.

“We try to pick a topic that resonates with the broadest general public, something that people are familiar with so they feel comfortable,” MacDonald said. “But, we will take them beyond and show them the interesting science behind it.”

The free structure of the event will allow patrons to peruse all experiments on their own schedule from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Two of the experiments are too dangerous for the visitors to conduct themselves, and will be facilitated by MacDonald and Dawn Kirchner, museum educator. Kirchner said the electrocution of a pickle produces a yellow-orange glow. The cornstarch explosion, Kirchner’s personal favorite, makes a large fireball and a loud popping noise.

“Anything that involves fire, people will automatically be interested in,” Kirchner said.

Emily Tremain, Apple Valley, Minn., graduate student, is a student volunteer who will help supervise the hands-on experiments. She said most people don’t think about the science behind food that they eat or cook.

“It’s all stuff you can do in your kitchen,” Tremain said. “We’re not using anything expensive or bizarre. It’s something that undergraduates can come and check out.”

Kansan staff writer Danae DeShazer can be contacted at ddeshazer@kansan.com.

— Edited by Will McCullough

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