Mid-Continent Public Library allows kids to have a blast with Zoom chemistry classes

Science programs for kids look a little different at the Mid-Continent Public Library right now. Last week, approximately nine children crowded around their webcams to tune into “Chemistry in a Flash,” a Zoom presentation from Mad Science of Greater Kansas City.

There were only three rules: Stay muted unless you were asking a question, don’t try the experiments at home and have fun.

Having programs like this over Zoom is a different experience than what you’d normally have in a library program for kids. Instructor Andy Chapel tried to replace some of that missing hands-on factor.

“It ends up taking more energy and oomph for that extra level of engagement,” he said. “We try to make our things as hands-on as possible. That has been a struggle. We still want to have it be hands on, but there are only so many ways to do that.”

That could mean asking the kids to give a thumbs-up if they’ve heard of chemical reactions or getting them to dance fast and slow to illustrate the different possible speeds of such a reaction.

Other Mad Science classes done through schools have kits delivered to participants that might allow a little more physical interaction with the materials they’re studying. In this case, he tried to get that same sense by engaging them with more questions.

Often that’s asking them to hypothesize what will happen when he mixes two chemicals or stirs a solution in a beaker.

“What makes me the happiest is when they’re really thinking through, and they’re making connections to other things, and they’re making guesses like, ‘I think this will happen because of this,’” he said.

Chapel, who is in his senior year studying music education at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, has taught classes with Mad Science since January. Because he’s also a student, he, too, saw his own classes go online.

Having an insight into how it looks from a student’s perspective has informed his own teaching habits, Chapel said. As students have returned to school this fall, many of them at least partially online, he’s seen them get better at using Zoom and muting appropriately.

He loves when the kids bring their own experiences to the class.

“It’s nice to make the connection to things they’ve seen in their real life. Science is something in the entire world around us; science is everywhere,” Chapel said.

In last week’s class, one boy at this class suggested that you can make a volcano with a chemical reaction — and you can if you’ve got some baking soda and vinegar handy.

The kids were really hoping to see a more explosive chemical reaction. Another attendee suggested Chapel should mix all the chemicals in the lab together because “it might explode.”

It’s a common request.

“Everyone wants an explosion. I do, too, but I just don’t like cleaning up,” he said.

Although he mostly teaches from a Mad Science office, he does teach a few classes from home on his laptop.

Chapel reminded the kids not to try the experiments at their homes and not to eat anything they might make by experimenting.

While the kids watched steel wool rust at different rates while sitting in a variety of solutions, they were also learning key scientific terms such as “reaction” and “catalyst.”

Also on the slate of reaction experiments was making slimy worms by mixing calcium chloride with sodium alginate.

The library has several other Mad Science programs happening, and Chapel said he’s seen some of the kids come back week after week. To sign up for library programs, visit mymcpl.org.