I’m not sure if Halloween was better for me as a kid or right now as an adult… but it’s no secret that I make the most out of every Halloween. As a holiday, Halloween has changed so much over the years. I never remember my parents being invited to an “adult�? Halloween party, but now these parties are more popular than ever. When my family and I arrived at a neighbor’s Halloween party last year, we were greeted by ghosts and goblins on the driveway who lead us through an awesome maze, into their hanunted house on our way into the party. The whole garage had been transformed into a full-blown haunted mansion! Yes, Halloween has changed over the years and this is part of the inspiration behind a our Halloween Science Kit.

As a teacher, I could hardly wait for the first of October to roll around so I could start planning my Halloween Science demos and activities for my students. Every year my Halloween Science unit grew… and so did the storage space I needed to keep everything. Beakers, graduated cylinders, cauldrons, static electricity machine, growing body parts… you name it and we probably have it in storage. I also found this addiction to be quite contagious. It didn’t take long to get my fellow teachers hooked on the idea of using this “crazy�? time of the year to actually teach some cool science. Every year my fellow teachers and I would add new demos and activities until we were bursting at the seams with a great Halloween Science unit.

We’re very proud of our Halloween Science Kit. It’s filled with lots of great science and the fun-factor is at an all-time high. Take a look and tell me what else you would have added from your collection of eerie science favorites.

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Our week-long salute to amazing science teachers wraps up with a visit to Heritage High School in Littleton, Colorado, where chemistry teacher Wally Keesecker gets students fired up about science. Wally is well-known for his attention-grabbing science demos that introduce students to real-world connections to everyday chemistry.

Video: The Steve Spangler Mad Scientist Tour finishes the week with a bang at Heritage High School. 6 a.m. October 7, 2005.
This is an especially fun visit for Steve since Wally Keesecker was his 8th grade science teacher in the Littleton Public Schools. “People like me make the decision to go into education after being inspired by an amazing teacher. While I didn’t exactly know that I would one day become a science teacher, I knew that I wanted to do something in education after experiencing someone as amazing as Wally Keesecker,” says Steve Spangler who is like a kid in a candy store whenever he pays a visit to his former science teacher.

Wally and his teaching colleagues dazzled us with two demonstrations centered around a Halloween theme. The first demo illustrated a chemical reaction that oozed from the eyes and mouth of a carved pumpkin. Because of safety reasons, Mr. Keesecker did not share his secret recipe for the reaction he featured on television, but we learned that a similar effect can be achieved by placing a glass of hot water in the carved out pumpkin, add a squirt of Dawn dish soap to the water and drop in a chunk of dry ice. Bubbles filled with carbon dioxide gas will ooze from front of the pumpkin - very cool! Here are more Halloween Science demos you can try with dry ice.

 

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