Spooky Science Experiment Takes Center Stage at St. Matthew’s
Students received a demonstration from senior cryogenics engineer David Petrick, who launched several bottle rockets and garbage cans and exploded pumpkins. Petrick said he hopes to get children interested in science through the hands-on experience.
By Mariah Thomas
“Ten, nine, eight …” shouted students at St. Matthew’s as they sat behind a chain-link fence, watching a science experiment take place in the school’s courtyard Wednesday afternoon.
As the students’ countdown hit zero, for a moment, the excitement waned as it appeared nothing was happening. Then, the trash can went sky high with smoke billowing out of it, flying over 100 feet into the air.
Students screamed, and senior cryogenic engineer David Petrick sprinted across the courtyard, attempting to catch the plastic garbage bin before it bounced too close to the children.
“That was sick!” one shouted, as Petrick geared up for another launch.
Students watched through a slight drizzle of rain as Petrick proceeded to pour liquid nitrogen into bottles to cause the reactions. Petrick, who contracts with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), blew up a pair of pumpkins with “Happy Halloween” written on them in Sharpie, launched another trash can into the air and did the same with several plastic bottles.
Throughout the 20-minute demonstration, his wife, Holley, a teacher at St. Matthew’s, emceed. She told the students about David’s work as a cryogenics engineer and explained the mechanics of the reactions taking place. Liquid nitrogen mixed with water in a sealed container resulted in the explosions the students watched. It mimicked the reactions NASA scientists use to launch rockets.
“I think it’s very cool,” said Xander Levengood, an eighth-grader at St. Matthew’s. “Science is cool, and I think it’s cool that we have one of our teacher’s husbands that works for NASA here.”
The Petricks have performed the cryogenics demonstration at St. Matthew’s for the past three years. David said the presentation wasn’t under the auspice of his work with NASA. Instead, he offers it as a “unique benefit” for St. Matthew’s students.
“One of the unique reasons we come back to St. Matthew’s is because it’s a private school, we can,” David said. “There’s a lot of roadblocks that are removed from doing this. It would be a lot harder to do in a public school. I do it as a unique benefit for the students here so they can learn about rocket science and get more excited about STEM activities.”
STEM is a common acronym used in education to refer to science, technology, engineering and math.
Holley teaches middle school theology at the Catholic school. The demonstration began when she had some students in her class with an interest in astronomy.
One of the students, Price Salois, recalled filling out a worksheet about himself in Holley’s class in the seventh grade. Now a freshman at Glacier High School, Salois said he wrote that he was interested in space, aerospace and astronomy. The interest stemmed from watching YouTube videos about science and space.
Holley suggested the demonstration after finding out Salois had an interest. But even after Salois graduated from the K-8 Catholic school, the tradition continued. The first year, it worked out that the demonstration happened close to Halloween. At first, David only launched the bottles and trash cans. Then, the next year, the Petricks thought it would be fun to add pumpkins as part of the holiday.
Students said they thought it was “cool,” and they appreciated the opportunity for hands-on learning. For David, that’s what it’s all about.
“To explain it to kids younger, this helps them understand what the field is, because low-temperature physics, low-temperature science, is becoming a pretty hot-button topic in artificial intelligence and quantum computing,” David said.
“And so, it’s not just rocket science anymore,” he continued. “It’s becoming more of a mainstream technology, and so I think there’s going to be a lot of infrastructure needs for that in the coming decades, and that’s part of my motivation, my personal motivation, is to raise technical interests in younger kids for cryogenics.”
But unless students know it’s out there, it can be hard to find their way to it. By exposing them at a young age, he hopes students can gain a greater appreciation for the science.
That goal has certainly rung true for Salois, who returned to St. Matthew’s Wednesday afternoon for the demonstration. He plans to take an astronomy class at Glacier High next year. His goal is to eventually pursue a career in computer science.