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Spamming the following addresses:
mark@EMarketersAmerica.org
Felstein@bellsouth.net
mefels@aol.com
would be really naughty. Don't do it. Just in case, I'll spam-proof them:
mark@EMarketersAmerica.NOSPAM.org
Felstein@bellsouth.NOSPAM.net
mefels@aol.NOSPAM.com
Now people know you shouldn't spam them...

I used to teach an activity class at Camp Susque called "The Wonder of it All" which was basically neat science expirements with the explanations. To begin every week, all the counselors would do a short skit to excite the campers about the activities. I did a skit called "red eye." I'm not sure who had the idea originally, I sure didn't make it up, but the skit was always incredible and wowed the kids.

Here's the synopsis of the skit, I'll explain how it works afterwords:

Sitting at a table is a bartender...washing his glasses. A rough looking character walks in and demands a glass of redeye (pink lemonade works better and is more funny). The bartender grabs a pitcher full of clear liquid and pours it into an empty glass. The glass fills up with a red/pinkish liquid. Another guy walks in, a city slicker, and asks for some water. The bartender, pouring from the same pitcher, pours a glass of "water" into an empty glass. The rough looking guy laughs at the city slicker and tells him he should try the lemonade, and that he'd pay for a new round. The bartender grabs both glasses, pours them into the pitcher (the liquid turns pink), and the bartender pours out two glasses of the pink liquid. At this point, a sheriff walks in and asks for some water. The bartender pours the pink liquid into an empty glass and the liquid instantly turns clear as it is poured in. (A lot of wows from the audience at this time). Here's the big finally: The sheriff says that lemonade is bad for you and that the two guys should try some water. The guys (strangely) agree and give their glasses of pink liquid to the bartender. The sheriff also hands his glass to the bartender and says he'll pay for the round of waters. The bartender pours the sheriff's "water" back in the pitcher which instantly turns into a clear liquid. After that, the bartender (slowly because it looks so cool) pours the pink liquids into the container (so you see a pink liquid pouring in and it becomes clear the instant it touches the water...looks very cool). The bartender then pours out a round of "water" to the three customers. *curtain* *Applause*

The effect of this trick is pretty dramatic (without blowing anything up!), and it is QUITE simple with no special chemicals needed. The only things you need are ExLax, rubbing alcohol, and white vinegar, ammonia and water. To prepare, I would take and exlax pill and grind it up and mix it in a quarter cup of alcohol. This would provide enough solution for 10-20 skits. The mixture you just created is poor-man's phenolphthalein, a chemical that detects acid and turns red when it finds it.

Prep: Get three clear glasses and a pitcher. Take the phenolphthalein and put a few drops (10-15) in the bottom of a clear glass (the ruffian's glass). Put about twice that much ammonia in the bottom of the sheriff's glass. Leave the cityslicker's glass empty and unchanged. In the pitcher, add a few drops of white vinegar to about a quart of water.

How it works: when you pour the vinegar water into the ruffians glass, the phenolphthalein makes it turn a bright pink/red. When you pour it back into the pitcher (before pouring the lemonade for both the cityslicker and the ruffian), it will turn the entire pitcher to a bright pink. When you pour the vinegar/phenolphthalein water into the sheriff's glass, the ammonia (a basic substance) neutralizes the acid and the phenolphthalein will no longer be red...so the sheriff will have clear water. When you pour the sheriff's "water" back into the pitcher, any remaining pink water turns clear and as you pour the other two glasses of pink water in, they will be neutralized. Leaving you with a clear neutralized liquid.

Again, the skit works great and it is a lot of fun...however, a few things to remember: practise it a couple of times to get the amounts down right (I always estimated with the amounts, so I'm not sure if my drops and measurements are right), and DON'T DRINK THE LIQUIDS! Ammonia is not good for you and vinegar is nasty. One more thing..I know ex-lax was taken off the market for a while because it was supposedly carcinegenic. I think the chemical that was problematic was phenolphthalein....so, I don't know if exlax can make poor-man's phenolphthalein anymore. Try it out (even w/o phenolphthalein, the replacement might do the trick), and if it doesn't work, just buy some regular phenolphthalein from a pharmacy or chemical supply house (it isn't uncommon...I remember using it in 7th grade chemistry).

Another couple of cool hand's on expirements we did in the class were simple bakingsoda/vinegar expirements using film canisters (make sure they are the lids that pop into the container, not that ones that have the lid that goes on the outside)...add a bit of vinegar in the container, put some baking soda in the lid, pop the lid on, shake it, throw it...BOOM!

Other expirements included balloon rockets, water rockets (with an air pump and 2 liter soda bottles...you could get the suckers to shoot REALLY high!), polymers (magician's slush powder makes it even better) that soak up 100 times their weight in water, cornstarch and water (makes a pseudo solid...hard under pressure but liquid when released), making huge epson salt crystals on pipe cleaners, etc...etc. I'll think of some more, but if any of those expirements sound like fun and you need more info on them, shoot me an email [peter@peterswift.nospam.org] and I can give you detailed instructions on each one.

Still anything with explosions, dry ice, liquid nitrogen etc still seem to be crowd favorites.

Another crowd pleased is covering your arm with rubbing alcohol and igniting it and running around screaming then say it didn't hurt at all (make SURE YOU SHAVE YOUR ARM FIRST! ARM HAIR BURNS AND HURTS A LOT...not speaking from experience or anything *cough*).