Halloween chemistry wows at Bowling Green Junior High

Chemistry students at Bowling Green Junior High School got to see exploding and puking pumpkins Thursday.

"These people are professionals," said Jacob Mead, 12, a seventh-grader. "This stuff's serious."

Chemistry teachers Rebecca King and Ben Lyne always try to have a Halloween-themed chemistry class each year. The two teachers have a combined 300-plus students. Each has been teaching chemistry at the junior high for seven years.

The action started in the chemistry lab withseveral experiments.

King poured a liquid in a large flask, then added orange food coloring. Shaking the flask, the liquid turned a dark color. It changed from black to green to yellow. It continued to change colors while the two teachers worked on another experiment.

King explained that the electrons inside the flask kept switching on and off, getting excited and then chilling out.

Lyne showed students how chemists combine hydrogen peroxide with some dish soap and what's inside those green glow sticks. Switching off the overhead classroom lights, the kids oohed and aahed as the resultant chemical reaction created a glowing substance.

"I didn't know you could do cool stuff in chemistry," Jacob said.

Using three beakers, the teachers placed a clear, a yellow and a pink liquid in each. Adding another chemical, a reaction occurred and the kids saw a polymer that glowed when bathed with black light. The stringy byproduct was dubbed a "slimy worm" by King. "They feel like gummy worms," she said.

The first jack-o-lantern on stage was filled with a piece of dry ice. Before putting the dry ice in the pumpkin, King explained that dry ice is different from water-based ice. Dry ice is made of frozen carbon dioxide. When dry ice "melts," it goes from a solid to a gas, a process called sublimation.

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Halloween chemistry wows at Bowling Green Junior High