Science Night in Whitewater

Diet Coke & Mentos from John Adams on Vimeo.

Last night was Science Night in Whitewater, and many hundreds from the city turned out to see dozens of displays and exhibits.  My family had a fine time, and I’d say that Science Night (held periodically but infrequently) is one of our favorite public events in town.  

In one building, with exhibits in the gym, lunchroom, and hallways, spectators could see displays on electricity, mechanics, natural history, biology, chemistry, a darkroom for experiments requiring a relative absence of light, and even ice-cream making.  

(Embedded above, you’ll see a video of a never-fails-to-impress Diet Coke and Mentos exhibit.)  

My youngest explored from room to room, stopping also at displays in the hallways.  I’d not be able to list conveniently every project we saw, but without slight to any, a few were memorable.  There are few places, other than at a science fair, where can visitors easily walk between exhibits of air pressure at work, gravity in action, displays of animal biology, fossils, and a Faraday cage.

For those who worry over our country’s future, there’s no better reassurance than Science Night – Americans remain, as we have been from our earliest days, among the leading explorers of the created natural order, both big and small.  

The many who presented last night, and those many more who attended, are proof that our next generation is no less ambitious, no less curious, than we were in our youth.   

Wonderful, Whitewater – simply wonderful.