Twenty Years of Silly Putty, Microscopes, and Community

By Allison Lynch and Natalie Giordano

As freshman biology major Ashton Colby poured a vial of hydrogen peroxide into a liquid green mixture he asked, “Are you guys ready for this?”The mixture was for the “Elephant Toothpaste” experiment during Gordon College’s Science Carnival on Saturday, October 10th in the Ken Olsen Science Center. For the past twenty years during homecoming weekend, the science department has organized activities and experiments geared towards children and their accompanying alumni parents. “I like to bring science to a broader community – out of the lab and into the public arena” said Dwight Tshudy, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Gordon.

“We like to show that we’re geeks,” said Rachel Shirron, ’10, double major in chemistry and math who co-coordinated the carnival this year. This year, the carnival committee was excited to incorporate the “It’s Elemental!” theme of National Chemistry Week, which begins October 18th. “It goes along great with the electrolysis experiment,” said Shirron.

For children, Shirron’s electrolysis demonstration was a novelty, but for alumni Jen Forster, ’94, who had not seen the updated science center until this homecoming, the carnival revealed Gordon’s progress. “It’s really cool to know [the KOSC] has all the new technology,” she said.

But the three floors of biology, chemistry, and physics activities do not happen overnight; planning starts in September. “It’s a lot of work,” said Shirron. All the work culminates into a fun and engaging display of chemical eruptions, silly putty globules, microscope slides, and M&M math puzzles. “It’s always rewarding,” said Tshudy.

Tshudy’s goal is to connect alumni parents with professors, and to involve Gordon students in the volunteer work. “Students can get out and bring science to a bigger audience,” said Tshudy. “This is the only day we get to play with physics toys; the rest of the time we have to do lab work,” said Jordan Montgomery, ’10, who taught kids like Alexander MacTaylor, 4, about magnetic damping.

Fortunately, the advanced concepts are condensed for the younger audience. “We keep it simple and fun,” said Tshudy, because “Science is for all ages.” As for associate physics professor David Lee, whose daughter Paloma enjoyed sitting in an expandable plastic orb, “It’s a lot like magic.”