Getting a charge from science

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Veterinary science freshman Tasha Parks (left) and molecular and cellular biology senior Rajni Gunnala teach elementary school students about light and energy during their demonstration "Jolts and Volts" at the Flandrau Science Center yesterday. The demonstration featured experiments with lasers, static electricity and glowing balls of plasma.

It wasn't an experiment gone wrong, but a new "Jolts and Volts" exhibit in celebration of National Science and Technology Week.

Local school children are being taught the basics of electricity with interactive displays that shock, spark and raise hair.

A staff member shone a laser through different filters, making red patterns on a blackboard while a crowd of school kids broke into "ooos", "wows" and the occasional "cool."

Students' hair stood on end when it touched a generator that creates static electricity in a giant metal sphere. If children dare to bring another piece of metal near the orb, the electricity snaps between the two with a blue spark.

Flandrau staff members also demonstrated how electricity can make certain gases glow. Mercury gas takes on a pale blue hue, while hydrogen shines a pinkish-purple.

Like in a fluorescent bulb, the electricity excites the atoms in the gas, causing it to release photons and light up.

Flandrau's other new interactive display, a colony of two-inch Manduca moths, seemed unimpressed by the pyrotechnics.

William Buckingham, director of the center, said that the moths are part of a new effort to "feature some of the research around campus."

Biochemistry professor Michael Wells, who has been studying the moths for nine years, helped set up the display.

He has also donated colonies to more than 100 local schools, where schoolchildren raise the moths and study their life cycles, he said.

The insects are native to North and South America and grow from tiny eggs to thick green caterpillars before becoming moths.

The entire process takes less than two months, he said.

The moths are unusual because they can eat tobacco plants, which contain Nicotine - a natural insecticide, Wells said.

The center plans to update many of its displays with the help of other UA researchers, including engineers that are building probes to other planets.

"Science is often thought of as something that happens elsewhere," Buckingham said, adding that many people still think of scientists as isolated individuals living their lives in laboratories.

"They may not think that the couple across the street could be scientists," he said.

"One of the things we want to do is chip away at many of these stereotypes," Buckingham added.

Christy Clow, Flandrau's educational director, hopes that having researchers show off their work will inspire schoolchildren to continue with their education.

"Anybody can go to college, anybody can do these missions to Mars," she said.