Fusion Science Theater Kids

What makes a lightning bug's light light? What do you think? Answer the quiz question below, then click on the answers to see whether you are right!

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Lightning Fast Lightning Bug Quiz

Question: How do lightning bugs make light?

Answer: The same way light is made by:

When lightning lights, heat is also produced. Have you ever held a lightning bug in your hand? Lightning bugs do not make heat, a good thing for them and you. This means "lightning" is not the right answer.
Light from glow-in-the-dark stuff fades after a few hours. If you want it to glow in the dark again, you put it back in the light to "recharge" it. That's because the light it produces in the dark is actually the same energy it absorbed earlier from the light. There's no light to recharge the lightning bug on a dark summer's night, so "glow in the dark stuff" is also wrong.
Like lightning, fire works produce searing heat when they light up. That's why you always see fire trucks nearby when fire works are set off on July 4th. Because lightning bugs don't need a fire hose around when they light up, "fire works" is not the right answer.
The light from a lightning bug is made by what's called bioluminescence which means light ("lumen") made by a living creature ("bio"). To make the flash of light you see on a summer's night, a lightning bug mixes two different chemicals together in its abdomen. These chemicals react to make a third chemical and the process produces light. This is also how a Glowstick® works. The plastic tube of the Glowstick® is filled with one chemical. A little glass container inside the tube is filled with another chemical. When you bend the tube, you snap the inner container. The two chemicals mix, and "presto!" you have light. The lightning bug mixes these chemicals together every time it makes a flash!

Fusion Science Theater works the same way. We mix science and theater and get energy in the form of excitement, fun, and learning. That's why we chose a lightning bug as our mascot.

...a new & cool way to learn and do science through theater.

If you’ve seen a Fusion Science Theater show, please click on the name of the show below.

In this show, you help the Scientist from the Box investigate one of this planet’s the most important and mysterious substances— water. Join us for exciting experiments, voting your mind, the dance of the molecules, and a can that can’t stand the cold.

Have you ever wondered how why some lights glow and others burn out? Help the Scientist from the Box explore the what, why’s and who’s of electrical current by playing “The Circuit Game.”

This still-in-the-works but very cool show explores what makes you human (or NOT!) Coming in Fall 2008!!

The acts of our circus will amaze your eyes, tickle your funny bone, and grow your mind. Join the Ringmaster and sidekick Squirt to find out how atoms produce beautiful colors of light, the secret of a polymer, and what makes the biggest boom! Come to the stage to act out the “why” behind the amazing circus feats, and experience our perfect recipe for learning science: cool experiments + acting it out on stage + lots of fun.

Audience members join the scientist and her assistant, Vinnie White, as water molecules in "The Boiling Point."

"Molecules, any chemist will tell you, have lots to teach us," begins Terry Devitt in a press release from the University of Wisconsin. "Giving voice to the lessons of molecules and other props of science, as the lamentable state of science literacy in the United States attests, is no easy task," Dewitt writes.

Describing Fusion Science Theater's approach to education, Dewitt writes: "The project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is really about creating a tool, a model program that can be adapted by teachers and others to channel basic concepts of science to young children. The idea, says Holly Walter Kerby, a Madison playwright and an MATC instructor of chemistry and creative writing/drama, is to adapt the techniques of theater - theme, character and dramatic question - to teaching science to young people."

To learn more, go to "Using Street Theater to Channel the Lessons of Molecules."