Tash Mahnokaren
Staff Writer
The Society of Physics Students in collaboration with the Kiwanis Club of Pocatello will be putting on a haunted science lab exhibit open to the public on Saturday, Oct. 25, from 3 to 9 p.m.
“There is a very large service component and this whole haunted lab is kind of a good example of the stuff the club does,” said physics professor at Idaho State University Steven Shropshire.
The Society of Physics Students, according to Shropshire, has been putting on the exhibit for more than a decade now and is in its third year of partnership with the Kiwanis Club.
According to Shropshire, the physics club is actively involved with events concerning science education for kids.
“They have done an event every year at the mall where they set up some science demonstrations and feed kids liquid nitrogen ice cream,” said Shropshire. “The club is very active in community service. They visit a lot of schools during the year to do science activities with kids. They also help to organize the Eastern Idaho Science Olympiad and have been active in the Idaho Science and Engineering Festival.”
Finding a location to house the exhibit has been an obstacle to the club over the past few years. Operating on a rather tight budget, the club often has to find a location to house their exhibits for weeks, many of which are held together by mere string and tape.
The exhibit has previously been held on campus at the student union building as part of the Halloween carnival and off campus at school gyms and churches, which were accessible to the public.
This year the exhibit will be held at the old CARQUEST warehouse.
The entrance fee on Saturday will be $3 per person, or $7 per family with a limit of 6.
The exhibit will also be open from Oct. 20 through the 24 to field trips.
“And between the local schools and after school programs, we are going to have kids coming in through there every day from [9 a.m. to 5p.m.],” said Shropshire.
The exhibit, tailored to enriching adolescents with science education, will consist of various interactive hands-on displays.
“Every exhibit will have a description written probably between the third and fifth grade reading level,” said Shropshire “We try to assemble exhibits illustrating a number of physical properties but with kind of a Halloween feel.”
Illusions are frequently an aspect of Halloween trickery and classic horror films.
The exhibit will display demonstrations about the use of optics including lasers, reflections and electrostatics.
The exhibit will also feature a common illusion used by magicians referred to as peppers ghost where the image of a ghost is reflected to create transparent supernatural images.
“Magicians use this to make things look like they can levitate, float, disappear or as if they are putting swords through people,” said Shropshire.
The Kiwanis Club is an international organization dedicated to the welfare of adolescents.
The Kiwanis Club of Pocatello’s assistance to the exhibit comes in the monetary form of providing bussing costs for school districts to get students to the exhibit and providing volunteers to assist with the demonstration.
“The Pocatello group is active in programs that support education, health and welfare of local kids,” said Shropshire.
