Students involved in Creighton University’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry performed the annual chemistry show, called “Creighton Demonstrations to Music.”
The show, geared towards children, featured a variety of experiments set to music. Creighton first performed it in 1995.
Most of the show was developed by retired professors Gary Michels, Ph.D. and Kelly Sullivan, Ph.D., according to Chemistry professor Eric Haas, Ph.D., who helped with the show. However, some of the acts have changed over the years.
This year, College of Arts and Sciences seniors Julia Martin, Maddie Soyer and Caroline Brandeberry helped change some of the choreography. Additionally, in an act where the song “The Rainbow Connection” is played during an experiment, this year’s students chose to include someone dressed up like Kermit the Frog, instead of just having a stuffed animal on display during the number like they did in previous years.
Soyer co-led the show with College of Arts and Sciences senior Jamie Janos.
“I’ve been in chem shows since my sophomore year, and I’ve done a lot of chemical demonstrations with Dr. Haas, so I kind of helped to organize it and put it all together,” Soyer said. “We had to cast of the acts, learn all of the chemistry for all of them and have them practice with the music.”
The show’s finale involved lighting hydrogen balloons on fire, which made a loud noise and had a large combustion.
“[Lighting the balloons] is something that we don’t get to do in an actual lab most of the time, and everyone in the audience enjoys it as well,” Janos said.
The students in the show have been working on the production since the semester started, rehearsing to make sure the timing of the experiments went well and everything worked smoothly for the show.
“I’ve had most of these students in class, but they really took all the initiative themselves. They ran this,” Haas said.
The show is one of the department’s outreach programs. According to Janos, this is their only outreach program that is also open to the Creighton community.
“We hope that we will excite some people about chemistry and what can be done with chemistry. [We] want them to ask more… Hopefully everyone who watches this will be interested in finding out more,” Haas said.