Diseases! Superheroes! Glowing pickles! Science fest has it all

Something bad is happening at Emory. Students and faculty are suddenly stricken with a strange sickness. Classrooms are empty; the campus, still.

Scientists, physicians and other experts gather to track the unnamed disease. With them are a ninth-grader and his eighth-grade girlfriend, a couple of guys from the loan division of a downtown bank and —

Wait. Since when do dating adolescents and bankers step up to put down a health crisis?

They do during the Atlanta Science Festival, which begins this Saturday and runs through March 28. It concludes with a daylong festival at Centennial Olympic Park, closing a week where the stuff of science — electricity, harmonics, botany, stargazing, you name it — will be on display at venues across the city and region. This is the second annual festival. Nearly every event is free.

Among those venues: Emory University, site of The Outbreak Game. For nearly two hours Saturday, participants will gather clues to track down what is making folks sick. Are mosquitoes the cause? Can patients offer any insights? Will officials be forthcoming in an afternoon news conference?

Ariel Fristoe knows, and she ain’t saying. She’s the founder of Out of Hand Theater, which is behind this mock malaise. The theater, which specializes in participatory games, has been doing this sort of thing for a decade. Price: $10 general admission; $5 for students with valid IDs. You can register in advance (see below).

What is the disease? Fristoe laughed. “I can’t tell you.”

David Hartnett, the festival’s chairman of the board, is happy to talk about the festival. The celebration of STEAM — science, technology, engineering, art and math — showcases an array of marvels, he said.

Last year’s festival debuted with $300,000 in donations from donors large and small. About 30,000 people visited more than 50 venues across the area, making it the sixth-largest science event in the nation.

This year, he said, the festival is operating on a $500,000 budget and has more than 100 events. The festival’s offerings occur daily, as far north as Cartersville (learn about the fabulous qualities of sand at the Tellus Science Museum) and east to Rutledge (the observatory at Hard Labor Creek State Park will have its big eye cast toward the skies).

Hartnett, who’s also the vice president of economic development for the Metro Atlanta Chamber, expects lots of folks, too.

“There is fire, blowups, slimy, gooey, things going off,” he said.

Hartnett credits the metro region’s scientists, many from area universities, for creating something that has become so popular, so quickly.

“The scientific community (has been) unknown, behind the stage. They’ve never had a voice to tell what they do,” he said. “We’ve given them a platform to tell the world what they do.”

And oh, the things they do. For example:

Holy gravity, Batman!

A job for Superman? Spider-Man? Perhaps. To find out, visit the Superhero Science Festival. It takes place Saturday at Atlanta’s Children’s Museum.

It’s aimed at kids under 8, and the museum urges them to dress as their favorite hero — masked avenger, web-slinger, Dark Knight, you name it.

Be prepared, said Karen Kelly, the museum’s director of exhibits and education, to see some “whiz-bang science.”

She’s excited about the goings-on at the museum, which is participating in the festival for the second time. “It’s a lot of fun,” she said.

A lot of learning might go on, too. “They (kids) are natural experimenters,” she said. “A lot of times, what they learn as a child sticks with them.”

The enigmatic pickle

How could you forget your first glowing pickle? What, you’ve never seen one? The Science Machine can rectify that.

At 6 p.m. March 27, Mr. Machine — aka Michael Green — will attempt the improbable: With extension cord, nails and one big ol’ gherkin, he’ll illuminate a briny cucumber at the Little Shop of Stories in Decatur. Be there by 6 for Science for Everyone.

No, it's not magic. The pickle's luminescence emanates from the combination of electrical charges from the wire and sodium in the pickle. "It gives off this really cool, green glow," said Green, whose company, Science for Everyone Inc. (www.scienceforevery1.com), brings the basics of science to classrooms.

But that’s not all. Watch a bar of Ivory soap expand to the size of a football in one minute! Gasp while 20 pencils poke holes in a plastic bag filled with water — and not one drop hits the floor!

They might be giants — again

They were the monsters of the Eastern forests until blight felled them. Today, all that remains of the mighty American chestnut tree are aged photos and yellowed maps depicting where they once towered over the landscape. Yet Castanea dentata could take root and flourish again.

Learn how in Not Just Nuts. Bring Chestnuts Back to ATL. The program, hosted by the South Fork Conservancy, will let participants get down and dirty — this is in a literal sense — where the South and North Forks of Peachtree Creek come together.

Sally Sears, the conservancy’s executive director, figures the best way to teach people about the tree is to let them get their hands on one. And plant it. The organization has some trees that have been nurtured in classrooms and are now ready for life outdoors. The trick, she said, will be if they can survive blight, which lingers in the soil, and reach maturity.

If they do grow? Sears predicts a new forest cover. “You could hide people in them,” she said. “They were that big.”

This workshop is such a big deal that it takes place Saturday, Tuesday and March 27. Each session begins at 10 a.m. and ends at 11:30 a.m.

Of course, dear reader, this is just a sample. Stuff is happening everywhere, all the time. To learn more, and to preregister for some activities, go to http://atlantasciencefestival.org.