‘This is how witches and wizards cook’: Kids learn better living through Halloween chemistry

A Rocky Mountain College associate chemistry professor and three of his students proved on Halloween that anyone can enjoy better living through chemistry provided they dont mind being frightened a little.

Gavin Kirton teaches the Chemical Magic class at Rocky, where Gereint Sis, Paige Tanaka and Jessica Hayes make up the entire student body of what Hayes calls the best elective you can take at Rocky.

Dressed in lab coats and goggles and positioning their tongues firmly in their cheeks, the four put on what they call their Spook-tacular Halloween show at the Fortin Center Auditorium on Friday morning.

Its a show Kirton and students have been putting on in the community since 2009.

This is where the magic of Halloween and the science of chemistry intersect, Sis said.

For the dozen or so children attending the morning show, the Spook-tacular gave them an early jump on a day devoted both to collecting sugary snacks and to overcoming their fears of what goes bump in the night.

Or catches fire, or suddenly changes color in a beaker.

With a beaker in front of her, Tanaka told the students gathered Rocky students and those considerably younger that she is a quasi-witch who is almost there and enjoys changing seasons on a whim. Pouring another liquid into the original batch of the brew, she transformed clear blue into cloudy and then settled on a dark winter storm, to a few oohs and ahs from the crowd.

Of course, you can always go back, she said, bringing the mixture to its original sky-blue hue.

Sometimes, Sis told the crowd, all you want to do is make a little bit of fire in some water. He lit some small bowls containing undisclosed chemicals, and the resulting flames were in bright colors.

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'This is how witches and wizards cook': Kids learn better living through Halloween chemistry