Last Sunday at the Pikes Peak Marathon Block Party, a little girl wearing a pink dress visited the Cool Science booth with her family. All of them, the mom, dad, three sisters, and brother, were captivated by dragon’s breath, cereal that gives you the ability to blow smoke like a dragon. Well, not EXACTLY smoke. It’s actually a cloud of water vapor formed because the cereal is dipped in liquid nitrogen, which is -320°F.
 
At first the family was hesitant to put the cold-as-the-planet-Neptune cereal in their mouths, but finally the brave mom stepped forward. After she showed her family that the coast was clear and the fun you can have blowing clouds, the brother and two older sisters were eager to get their hands on some dragon’s breath of their own. The littlest sister was still not sure she wanted to commit to the experience, but her eyes betrayed her fascination with the science.
 
After the dragon’s breath, the family was able to make their own penny puzzles. When pennies made of zinc are cooled in liquid nitrogen, they become brittle and break into tiny pieces, which make excellent puzzles. This doesn’t happen to copper pennies (those made before 1982) because copper remains strong even when bellow -320°F.
 
The little girl was still apprehensive about experimenting with liquid nitrogen, however.
 
So, Cool Science showed her all the amazing things you can do with the substance. We showed her that it flash boils instantly when it hits the ground, leaving nothing but a small cloud. How it rolls along the table on a cushion of gas thanks to the Leidenfrost effect. And that its low viscosity means the liquid spins around in a beaker really fast—even when the beaker is upside down.
 
By the end of her visit, the little girl’s curiosity and wonder at the experiments may have sparked her future career as a scientist!

​-posted by Joshua

​At the beginning of August, Cool Science motored its way to the Sand Creek Library in southern Colorado Springs to help Pikes Pike Community College and the Pikes Peak Library District with their STEAM festival. STEAM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, art, and math. The festival was geared toward pre and early teens and aspiring young scientists.
 
Cool Science brought a host of activities designed to fool the senses of sound, sight, touch, and taste. "Goofy Ears", which are headphones with pop tubes and funnels, let kids trick their hearing so they couldn’t tell from which direction a sound was coming. Optical devices and cool glasses allowed kids see the world in very strange ways. The young scientists also played with ice melting blocks, where they saw ice cubes melt faster on the “cold” aluminum than on the “warmer” wood. They also discovered if they plugged their noses, they couldn’t taste different flavors of jellybeans.
 
These and other activities fascinated adults and kids alike. Seeing the science in their own hands, and having a chance to learn the explanations of what was happening in the experiments was exciting for many of the future scientists who came to the STEAM festival!

​-posted by Joshua   

​On the 31st of July, Cool Science was at the Manitou Library Lawn Concert where kids played with “goofy ears.” These are headphones with pop tubes and funnels that let the user alter his or her hearing. The kids also got to pretend they were dragons by combining breakfast cereal  with liquid nitrogen. Cool, right? Or…cool science!
 
Since liquid nitrogen is so cold (-320°F), it chills cereal instantly, and because the food is mostly air and sugar, it’s safe for the kids to pop the now-super-chilled treat right into their mouths. Then as they exhale the cold cereal condenses the water vapor in the air, creating an impressive fog that looks like a dragon blowing out smoke.
 
Once done with the cereal, the kids put on the headphones, where they learned the benefits of having two ears. Sound waves reach each of our two ears independently, which is how our brain locates a sound source in three dimensional space. By moving the pop tubes and funnels, you can trick your brain into thinking someone speaking to you on your left side seems to be talking on your right.
 
Both of these activities gave the kids something fun and engaging to do while their parents enjoyed the music at the concert. 

​-posted by Joshua