Rock music, gummy bears, and the Rio Grande
Winter 2025-26 Inventing tomorrow
Dark auditorium with a fiery explosion onstage

When three University of Minnesota chemistry professors invited a grade school to a live science demo, they didn’t expect “Energy and U” to evolve into a twice-yearly stage production and film adaptation drawing thousands.

Since 2006, more than 100,000 third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders in the Twin Cities have witnessed fireballs, exploding balloons, and flaming gummy bears. Thousands more watch online in Texas.

“Energy is an important topic kids connect with,” said Aaron Massari, 3M Alumni Professor and show director. “They use it every day. Our goal is to infuse fun so they appreciate science and see how they can invent new ways to convert energy in their lives.”

The program also inspired “Energía Y TÚ,” a Spanish version at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. After COVID hit in 2020, that show premiered as a film instead of a live show. In 2022, Massari, along with the three Energy and U founders—Frank Bates, David Blank, and Marc Hillmyer—won a Lone Star Emmy Award for collaborating with their Texas colleagues.

 

A man observes a State Fairgoer doing basic tasks at a table with several cameras recording her movements

State Fair impact on research studies

Each year, about two million people stream through the Minnesota State Fair—and thousands pause to do more than eat cheese curds. They step into the University’s research building on Cosgrove Street, where fairgoers help advance science in real time.

“Show-and-Tell for Robots: Learning Object Interactions from Humans” was among this year’s College of Science and Engineering studies. Faculty Karthik Desingh and Stephen Guy, with students Nirshal Chandra Sekar and Pearl Jain, aim to create robot models that can handle chores we’d rather skip.

The University’s building is the first facility of its kind in the nation, and it gives researchers fast access to a diverse sample of participants. For graduate students, the experience doubles as field training in participant recruitment and data collection.

“Our team interviewed almost 50 teenagers about how they use generative AI to navigate social interactions,” said Ph.D. candidate Seraphina Yong, who spent two days on site for the study she’s conducting with her faculty advisor Lana Yarosh. “A sample this size would otherwise have taken over half a year to collect.”

In all, more than 52,000 fairgoers joined 55 studies during the 12-day run.

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