Every Halloween season, hundreds of young people flock to Northern Illinois University for the annual Haunted Physics Laboratory. This year’s event promises to be bigger and spookier than ever—and it might just make your hair stand on end, quite literally.
Spooky Science Saturday, featuring the Haunted Physics Lab and its new companion, the Creepy Chemistry Lab, will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct 25, in Faraday Hall on the NIU campus.
Members of the public can arrive any time during the open house event. Entrance is free, although a $2 donation is suggested. The event attracted 1,100 visitors to campus last year, and this time around it has been significantly expanded.
Darkened laboratories will feature more than 80 interactive displays, including floating magnets, a levitating ghost, a hair-raising electrostatic machine and a “witch’s cauldron,” filled with a concoction of water and chilly liquid nitrogen. Visitors can don “rainbow glasses,” get creative with glow-in-the-dark face paints, ponder the lightning bolts in a plasma globe and make artworks that will only appear normal in funhouse-like mirrors.
Volunteer students and professors will be on hand to explain the science behind the demonstrations. Thanks to the NIU Chemistry Club, kids will have an opportunity to make take-home slime.
Spooky Science Saturday is part of a larger NIU outreach effort to spark young people’s interest in the sciences well before they reach college age. Visit www.outreach.niu.edu/stem/haunted_lab.shtml for more information on the event.
- Tom Parisi, NIU Public Affairs
- Photo by Scott Walstrom, NIU Media Services
Saturday, October 25
1-5 p.m.
Faraday Hall