Now for a little Tuesday treat we have a guest post from a dear friend of the show, current science illustrator and future museum evaluator Juliana Olsson! She wrote us up a post about her experience as the Iron Science Teacher competition held on June 25th, 2011. Enjoy! – Ryan

I have a confession: before attending the Iron Science Teacher competition at the Exploratorium a few Saturdays ago, I had never watched any “Iron [Fill in the Blank]” activity. It’s not that I discriminate against element 26, I just have a hard time reconciling the competitive nature of such events with the subjective topic: if each entry is good but in different ways, how do you choose the “best” one? Thus I was somewhat wary watching high school science teachers duke it out in front of a live audience to determine which one could come up with the best experiment and lesson plan on a given concept. Would this be a ferociously ferrous nerd bloodbath?

I shouldn’t have worried. It was awesome. There were chemicals and beakers and flames and muppet music. Things were learned, fun was had by all, and I approved of the winner. There was even a glowing pickle. Watch the webcast yourself, or read about the experiments after the jump.

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