Last wednesday our astronomy club held an event for the "Fäger", a program by the city of Bern that organizes events for kids in the spring, summer and fall vacations.
Our event was Discover Space and sported a 2 hour program including a water rocket, some real meteorites - including one from Mars - (generously borrowed by the Bern University's Space Research department) and a peek through the telescope of the Muesmatt observatory.
My part was explaining comets. This includes my all-time favorite experiment in astronomy education: The Kitchen Comet. Using water, various kinds of dirt and dry ice you can build a nice dirty snowball with crackling sound effects. Of course, it is only a model of a comet nuclei and there is no tail, but still you can image how excited the kids are to actually handle a comet in their hands! As the recipe says: "It's fun, it's a mess, and it's one of the most memorable and scientifically accurate demonstrations in astronomy". I tried to moblog the creation. Next wednesday, I will cook another one...