SciFest was held at Illinois Valley oths_scifest_13Community College  (IVCC) on Friday, April 11.

SciFest is an annual celebration of science put together by IVCC professor Matthew Johll.  Instead of people gathering in a gym to watch a sports contest, at SciFest they came together for hands-on science experiments and demonstrations designed to help them understand how science work in everyday life. This year some 500 people attended.

The Ottawa Township High School ChemClub was there also, to lend a hand in presenting some of the activies.  We had about a dozen members of our club attend and present the following hands on demos:

johll1johll1Dr. Johll laid on the bed of nails and had the cinder block broken on his chest. Some IVCC students demonstrated a  flame tube (also known as a Rubens’ Tube) that showed the acoustic waves in the flames as a guitar was played, and the crushing of the 55 gallon drum by air pressure.

In addition any Cub Scout could earn their Science belt loop or Boy Scouts could work on a Chemistry merit badge at the event.

In the end, the event generated a lot of excitement and thinking about science, and again, unlike a sporting event, there were no losers and everyone won.