Eight-year-old Ruadhrí Wold of Thomondgate in Limerick city carried a prized piece of paper as he went around the Fun Experiment Circuit in the main mall of Jetland Shopping Centre in Limerick yesterday.
"It was cool. I wrote my name on it in black ink and when I dipped the paper into water it turned into different colours," he said as he showed it to The Irish Times.
Such was his introduction to the principles of chromatography, presented by first-year science students from the Limerick Institute of Technology.
The science show was a contribution to Science Week Ireland and involved the LIT students setting up 18 different experiments at the centre and demonstrating them with gusto.
Ruadhrí also learned about static electricity when he rubbed a balloon over his hair and then made tiny pieces of styrofoam dance when he touched the balloon to the perspex that enclosed them. "Electric fleas" the students called them.
Grace Murray (13), from the North Circular Road in Limerick enjoyed launching a paper rocket by jumping on the air-filled soft drinks bottle to which it was connected. "I was very interested to know that you could launch things that way," she said.
Her brother Louie (9) enjoyed playing with a plasma globe. Their mother Louise Murray said she thought that having experiments in a shopping centre was a great idea.