05.23.2016
Written By: Zoe Christenson Wick
For the final Science for All event of the year, we invited the AIMS students to come to our campus for a day-long science extravaganza! We had several experiments planned – and completion of each experiment revealed a clue. Once all the clues were put together, we had them use their powers of deduction to solve some puzzles and unlock a treasure chest (read: large, old, tool box) filled with yummy ice cream toppings to go on top of their liquid nitrogen ice cream. While the ice cream was by far the most exciting part, the entire day was definitely a success.
We began the day with chemistry experiments in the big organic chemistry lab so that we could have access to hoods and the proper safety equipment to do some more complex reactions. For this experiment, we had the students make their own glow sticks, which glowed bright purple – hence, the clue for this experiment was PURPLE. The students seemed to like using the chemistry equipment, weighing chemicals, and seeing a reaction occur.
The next station was lunch, where we had some professors join us to chat with the students. Many cookies were traded.
Next, came biology. The theme of the biology experiments was showing the students how their senses could fool them. We had a taste station, where the students tried to eat sour things (like lemons or sour Warheads) and then let half a miracle berry tablet dissolve on their tongues. Miracle berries block your ability to sense sour flavors, so rather than a lemon tasting too sour to eat, it tasted like lemonade! Salt and vinegar chips also tasted oddly sweet. At the touch station, we had several buckets with various secret contents. However, the contents of the buckets were hidden because they were wrapped in black trash bags. The students had to feel the contents through the trash bag and try and guess what was inside. Each bucket contained an ice cream related item (ice cream cones, taster spoons, marshmallows, sprinkles) – and this is how we broke the news to the students that at the end of the day they would be receiving an ice cream treat. We also had a visual station where we did chromatography to unveil a secret message – FURRY. And this secret message was repeated in the auditory station, where the students’ teacher demonstrated the McGurk effect (‘ba’ vs ‘fa’, ‘curry’ vs ‘hurry’ vs ‘furry’) and the students played audio pong.
Physics came next, where the students learned about atmospheric pressure through siphoning experiments and the relationship between force and area using the chemistry lab’s vacuum lines. Once the students figured out how siphoning liquid from one beaker to another, they were challenged with revealing a series of 8 letters to spell out a clue. Each letter was hidden inside a graduated cylinder that was filled with opaque liquid. They had to figure out how to siphon the liquid from one graduated cylinder and back again to reveal the letters – which spelled POLKA DOT.
After physics, we headed back to the lunch room to do some logic puzzles and decipher the clues in order to unlock the treasure chest filled with ice cream toppings. Using a decoder ring, 5 groups decoded the words PURPLE, FURRY, or POLKA DOT into the name of a color. The lock on the treasure chest had 4 colors on it and the lock code was 5 colors long. Once they figured out which color their group was in charge of, they had to figure out the order of the colors necessary to unlock the lock. To figure out the order of the colors, they used either grape juice or UV light to reveal an invisible ink message revealing a number. They put all these colors and numbers together to unlock the chest and everyone feasted on delicious liquid nitrogen ice cream.