Most high schoolers who’ve gone to Spring Hill for a while can remember their fifth grade year. One of the most vivid memories, perhaps, was of the magic show performed by the Chemistry 2 class.

“I remember them setting bubbles on fire and making Orbeez, which I kept in a zip loc for days afterwards,” Lucy Kuhn, Chemistry 2 student, 12, said.

The tradition lives on, and once more the class is preparing for the show. Neil McLeod, chemistry teacher, faces his first year in charge of the demonstration.

“When I became the Chemistry 2 teacher I inherited it, which is kind of cool,” said McLeod. “This year we’re going to go to all of the fifth grade classes in the three elementary schools; Spring Hill Elementary, Prairie Creek and Wolf Creek, over the course of two days. We’ll do a little chemistry science show for them for an hour.”

McLeod, however, has little to do other than setting the dates. The majority of the planning of the demonstration is left to the Chemistry 2 students.

“Because all of these students are pretty close to college bound, I’m putting a lot of the responsibility on them,” McLeod said. “They also have to think through what they’re teaching and what kind of questions they’re going to be asked, and what questions they should ask the kids that are the show. Not just do a cool thing, but also link it to some science and try to teach the something at the same time.”

The students have been doing their fair share of work on the project.

“We’ve got hydrogen bubbles,” Josh Oursler, Chemistry 2 student, 12, said. “We’ve got this powder that you can use to change the color of fire. We’re working on this other one where you inhale sulfur tetraoxide and the effects it has on your vocal cords and makes them deeper.”

Beyond just the planning for the demonstration is enthusiasm for what it means.

“I thought that the Chemistry 2 students in high school were really cool and smart and it made me really excited to go to high school and learn as much as they did and do the things that they did for us,” said Kuhn. “It makes me feel really old because that doesn’t feel that long ago when I watched the high schoolers… We just look forward to sharing our enthusiasm with the fifth graders and being the ones to introduce to them how fun and crazy science actually is.”