Science National Honor Society’s Big Blue Demo Crew will perform a science show at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History on Oct. 22.

The performance will include 12 chemistry demonstrations repeated four times throughout the day. The team will be present at the museum at 8 a.m. and the conclusion will happen before 4 p.m.

Senior Beomjun Kim is the head of the demo team for the 2022-23 school year, leading and planning rehearsals and performances, aided by senior Sarah Choi, assistant head of the demo team.

“This year, I want to have more solid rehearsals, in a way where we’re [better prepared] for the demos at the museum,” Kim said. “I also want to make sure that we assign specific demos [before the event,] because [last year] students were randomly assigned on the spot and it made everything more disorganized.”

During the week leading up to the event, the crew plans to rehearse after school on Oct. 20 and Oct. 21, practicing the show’s commentary, cues and experiments. On the day of the show, the Big Blue Demo Crew will perform for children and other museum visitors, including parents and volunteering college students from universities in Texas.

“[The museum will have] a smaller audience [compared to other shows we’ll do,] but putting people in front of an audience changes the whole dynamic of what they’re doing,” demo team sponsor and science teacher Dr. Kathleen Holley said. “It’s just like if you’ve been practicing a play in the auditorium and then you have an audience, it changes how you respond.”

Holley was among the few educators who initiated the start of SNHS in Texas at North Crowley High School in 2002. After joining the Hebron staff in 2017, she applied to be the demo team sponsor, initiating the crew’s annual museum visit for the past five years. Holley oversees every performance, and provides some of the materials for the demos. She also transfers most of the equipment to demo sites with her own vehicle for safety reasons, one item being an explosive tank of hydrogen gas.

However, certain demos, like the “hydrogen balloons” or “burning money,” experiments, had to be replaced with other tricks to comply with the museum’s rule of “no open flames.”

“[The overall show will] be a little bit different, because usually we’ll [be able to] put seven or eight demos in for science nights that we cannot do at the museum,” Holley said.

Regardless of the variety of demos the team can perform, Choi said she is looking forward to the first demo show of the year and what future shows entail.

“This show will set the stage for all the future ones,” Choi said. “We’ll have to make a good impression and let everyone know that we’re a [national demo team] serious about [science.]”