One Alka Seltzer tablet and several drops of water sealed in an empty film canister - some 20 seconds of suspense, followed by several minutes of shrieks, whoops and laughter, marked an explosive start to national science week in Galway at the weekend.
The impact of carbon dioxide and the startling effects of pressure were among several scientific principles demonstrated by Éimear O'Kane and Alan Lyons of the Galway Atlantaquaria during a two-day programme for young visitors.
Three-year-old Maeve Bartley, and her brothers Patrick (7) and Lawrence (6), of Brittas, Co Limerick, were enthralled as participants in the Bradan open laboratory workshop poured golden syrup, water and vegetable oil into a bottle to establish the effect of density.
A grape was dropped into the liquids, followed by a pen cap and a cork, to ascertain what would float - and what wouldn't. Workshop participants also examined sandhoppers, crabs and feathers under digital microscopes, stroked starfish in tanks, and tried to count goby fish, mermaid's purses and other low-tide gatherings from the shore at Salthill.
Then it was up to the ocean tank to watch science educationalist, film-maker and artist Vincent Hyland swim with the angel shark and dogfish. Eyes widened as he described how he had been bitten by a jealous bull seal on a recent trip to the Galapagos - and widened yet further as he became a marine mammal himself, performing headstands and demonstrating divers' signals in the coldwater bath.
A pirates and cartoons show by John Joyce of the Marine Institute, an interactive microscopy display by the Western Fisheries Board and a presentation on the waterways of Galway city by St Patrick's national school were also part of the programme, and the science week's opening in the west was marked officially by RTÉ's marine correspondent, Tom MacSweeney.
