Students study sublimation

The Discovery East room at the PACE Center was full of bubbles, giggles and steam on June 17, as Laurel Block and her students capped a week of science studies with experiments involving dry ice.

Block is an instructor with Mad Science of Colorado, a program that provides scientific presentations to Denver-area schools, after-school programs and camps. The weeklong “Fizz-ical Phenomenon and Che-mystery” class taught the 6- to 12-year-olds involved about matter, molecules, cells and chemical properties.

To end the camp, Block taught her students about sublimation, the process of a solid substance instantly becoming a gas without passing through a liquid phase.

Block began the class discussing whether Pluto is a planet or an asteroid, but it was only a few minutes before she moved on to experiments that drew “oohs” and “ahs” from the children as readily as the water vapor released from test tubes.

“I just really like connecting with the kids and getting them excited about science,” Block said. “And they just love it.”

Block demonstrated how dry ice changes the temperature of objects it touches so quickly that it causes metal to emit a high-pitched hiss.

Then she brought on the steam.

Students watched and gasped as colored water bubbled in a test tube, then took turns poking and popping bubbles made when Block added dish soap to the mix and the escaping water vapor created frothy suds.

Aniah Barela Clark said she enjoyed the dry ice experiments, but her favorite day came earlier in the week, when the class studied cells.

“I thought it was pretty cool because I’ve never seen anybody put dish soap in dry ice before,” she said, adding “my favorite part (of the camp) was learning about cells because I’ve always been interested in cells and science… I really want to invent a cure for illness because there’s a bunch of illnesses that haven’t been cured yet.”

Student Carson Locke had a more direct evaluation of the camp and his experiment of choice.

“Dry ice was my favorite,” Locke said. “Because I really liked all of the bubbles.”