The pickle glows yellow and hums like a bug zapper.

It’s a giant dill pickle – a generic brand – and it has electrodes stuck in opposite ends.

This is a science demonstration, meant to show how electricity shows up as light energy, and how different metals glow in different colors.

Curiosity – not science – convinced Teresa MacDonald to try a slice of the pickle.

“It tastes a little smoky,” she says.

MacDonald, education director at the Kansas University Natural History Museum, has been playing around with food a lot the last few months in preparation for an exhibit that opens Monday and runs through March 24.

The exhibit, appropriately enough, is called “Playing with Your Food.”

“We’re looking at chemistry, physics and genetics,” MacDonald says. “When we usually think of chemicals in our food, we think they’re bad chemicals or preservatives. But food substances can just be a matter of physics or chemistry.”

The exhibit, in the panorama section of the museum, will feature both demonstrations and hands-on activities, geared toward children but entertaining and educational for adults as well.

This is the fourth year the museum has organized a public-education exhibition designed to attract children during spring break. MacDonald is expecting between 1,500 and 3,000 visitors next week.

Last year’s exhibit was “Creepy Crawlies,” on insects.

“We try to pick things that are fun and that make you curious,” MacDonald says. “It’s something that will resonate with the broad public and something that’s a little unexpected.”

Some demonstrations, like the electric pickle, are about food components. The pickle, for example, glows yellow because of the sodium inside it – it’s the same reason why sodium lights look yellow.

At another station, participants can shake a container filled with rice and a Hershey Kiss to see that the Kiss will float to the top of the rice as the mixture is shaken.

“They call it the ‘Brazilian nut effect,'” says Dawn Kirchner, a museum educator. “Most of the time, when you have a can of mixed nuts, the Brazil nuts will be at the top. It’s not what you expect – you expect to have the bigger things at the bottom.”

The effect likely is caused because the smaller particles in the mixture are more likely to fall into small places during shaking than the larger particles are. That means they fall to the bottom, making the larger particles rise to the top. It’s a challenge when it comes to mixed foods.

“This is a big issue for people in the cereal industry,” Kirchner says.

In another demonstration, air is puffed into a plastic container holding a lit cornstarch candle. It causes enough of a fireball to blow the top off the container.

Other experiments in the exhibit include:

¢ Dancing cereal – Using static electricity produced by wool, participants can make electrically charged breakfast cereal dance around.

¢ Gelatin light filters – Light changes colors – or sometimes doesn’t show up at all – when shone through different colors of gelatin.

¢ Marshmallow missiles – Participants can shoot marshmallows out of a cannon to show how air displacement works.

¢ Vinegar/baking soda explosions – Combining baking soda and vinegar in a sealed plastic bag causes the baggie to explode.

The demonstrations and hands-on exhibits may be geared toward children, but Kirchner promises even adults like herself can enjoy them.

“It’s definitely fun,” she says.