'Mr. Freeze' makes science fun for students

Loud pops and booms fill the Leman Middle School cafeteria, causing students to hold their ears and shriek.

But these aren't scary noises. In fact, shortly after, the kids are laughing and the sound of excited chatter fills the room.

Jerry Zimmerman, also known as "Mr. Freeze," is standing on a stage, a broken plastic bottle at his feet and a heavy steam floating through the air above his head.

Zimmerman played with liquid nitrogen for an hour at the school during a recent visit, filling bottles with it until they burst, scooping it into garbage bags that quickly exploded, freezing tennis balls with it and throwing it on the floor and letting beads of it slide to the walls.

Sixth-grade science teacher Katie Gentile met Zimmerman during her annual field trip with students to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where he has worked in cryogenics, or the study of how materials react in extremely cold temperatures, for 25 years.

"He asked if he could come do a show at our school," she said, adding that Zimmerman's first visit to Leman happened last year. "It's basically just getting kids turned on to science, and that's what our goal is, to get them turned on to science and excited about science and understand that anybody can be a scientist."

Zimmerman cracked lots of jokes about the cold during his presentation at the West Chicago school, noting that liquid nitrogen is "so cold it makes ice scream."

He also put on some silly stunts, such as dipping his glove-covered hand in the -320 degree liquid. When he pulled his hand out he alarmingly cracked the top half of the glove off, but quickly revealed his fingers were safe inside another, more durable glove.

"I hope that tomorrow that science won't be scary, boring, uninteresting," he said afterward. "It will be, 'Oh wow, I saw some really great, fun things and maybe I'll pay attention, and maybe when I get a choice when I get to high school I'll pick science because I saw some really fun, exciting things."

Zimmerman has been volunteering as Mr. Freeze for almost 19 years. He is one of several educators funded by Fermilab to put on demonstrations at schools throughout the Chicago area. He encourages other science teachers and schools to look into the program - which features presentations about a variety of subjects, such as light, color, motion and force - because it is a valuable resource in their backyard.

"They should be anxious to tap into it because it's free, it's going to get kids excited about science, and you can add to the curriculum you're presently presenting, and why not? You're having someone who's a scientist coming, talking," he said.

Gentile said Zimmerman's show fit into her curriculum because she often talks about chemical properties and lipids in her classes.

"This is a learning experience, as well as a really fun one," she said.

On Jan. 31, 2016, families are invited to Fermilab's annual open house to tour the facility and watch some hands-on demonstrations, including Zimmerman's experiments.

"We do want the public to get excited about science. That helps us when we're trying to do our science," he said. "If kids take a little bit of excitement about science away from here and can enjoy the idea that, boy, science is fun, I've done my work, I've done my job."