At childrens birthday parties, Rick Turner sometimes asks an unsuspecting dad or grandfather for a $20 bill.


He then dips the currency in rubbing alcohol and puts a match to it. As flames engulf the bill, kids laugh and grown-ups gasp.


After a few seconds, however, the fire burns out, but the bill remains intact without a single singe.


Its magic, right?


Wrong.


Its science. Mad science, to be more precise.


Its also how Turner hopes to make a living.


The 40-year-old Turner, better known in classrooms and kid-party circles as Radical Rick, is the founding mad scientist with Mad Science of Spokane, a business that he and his wife, Mickey, own through a company named Rick & Micks Inc.


For a fee, Mad Science of Spokane, a franchisee of Montreal-based Mad Science Group, puts on scientific demonstrations for children, but the programs are intended to be as educational as they are entertaining.


You can take science and make it so much fun for the kids, Turner says. We try to spark their imaginations.


Turner doesnt even need a captive audience to pique peoples interest. The thin, curly-haired man wears his laboratory coatcomplete with its embroidered Mad Science logowhile running routine errands, and he carries slime, putty, and flash paper, which burns up with a poof, with him so he can conduct quick demonstrations for those who inquire about his attire. He says people have stopped him in a variety of placeshe once landed a birthday-party booking after attracting a crowd during an impromptu demonstration in a bank lobby, and hes been stopped by curious parents in the aisles of Costco.


Ready to wow


Constantly prepared to wow with science, Turner has grown the business more quickly than he initially anticipated. He started the venture last Septemberafter taking a two-week franchisee course at Mad Sciences Montreal headquartersas a one-man venture operating out of the oversized two-car garage at his Spokane Valley home. He still operates out of his garage, but he also since has hired one full-time employee and five part-time mad-science instructors, who along with Turner, conduct demonstrations in classrooms and at parties.


He says the companys monthly revenues have grown quickly, to $7,000 in January from $200 in the businesss first month. He expects the company to turn a profit for the first time within the next few months, although he says his wife works outside of the business and for now provides the familys primary income.


Classroom demonstrations account for about 90 percent of Mad Science of Spokanes business. The other 10 percent comes from demonstrations at birthday parties and planned events for childrens organizations, such as Cub Scouts. So far, the company has worked in elementary-school classrooms in the Spokane District No. 81 and Central Valley school district, Turner says, and has worked at private parties throughout Spokane and Kootenai counties.


For schools, Mad Science offers what it refers to as science-enrichment programs, which are designed so that a teacher could adopt them as a science curriculum for an entire school year, although typically they complement a teachers established curriculum. With some programs, the demonstrations occur during school hours, and the school district picks up the tab. In other instances, the programs are offered after school, and parents pay to have their children participate.


Different curricula are set up for children in kindergarten through second grade and for students in third through sixth grades.


One lesson involves learning about the three states of mattersolid, liquid, and gas.


Children get to make a giant bubbling potion and create smoke illusions using dry ice. In another lesson, children learn about space and aerodynamics while building their own rocket. Some lessons include environmental messages, such as one that shows how water becomes polluted; it includes discussions about the effects of ocean pollution.


A favorite among elementary-school students is a lesson about polymers, which are substances in which several small molecules are chained together to create a larger, more complex molecule. That doesnt sound as exciting as building rockets, but to demonstrate the properties of polymers, the children make slime. Its a mixture of tempura paint, Borax, and polyvinyl alcohol, which is like a liquid plastic. The result is a stretchy green substance that wiggles like gelatin and intrigues grade school-aged children, Turner says.


We make it fun, as well as worthwhile for the schools, he says.


Mike Norman, a fifth-grade teacher at Sunrise Elementary School, in the Central Valley School District, says that school has started offering two eight-week, after-school Mad Science programs.


After two of the once-a-week programs, Nor-man says the kids are enjoying the demonstrations, and the mad scientist is doing a good job of holding the interest of the older children in each group, while not talking over the heads of the younger kids.


Most importantly, he says, the students are learning through the program.


Anytime you can get them to work, and they think theyre playing, theyre learning, and its fun, Norman says.


Mad Science uses a different set of demonstrations at birthday parties and special events. For example, Turner says he has an indoor fireworks demonstration thats popular with children who are 6 through 8. That demonstration teaches children about different chemical reactions and the properties of fire.


The burning $20 bill demonstration is part of the indoor fireworks shtick. The secret toand the lesson withinthat demonstration, Turner says, is that rubbing alcohol burns at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and paper doesnt burn until it reaches 450 degrees. Turner says hes always careful to remove excess rubbing alcohol from the $20 bill so that the alcohol burns off before the paper has a chance to heat up. As with all of his demonstrations, he advises the kids strongly against trying such things at home, and he says he always stresses safety when talking to children.


While Mad Science is off to a solid start, Turner says hes concerned about the summer months, during which the companys school clients literally take a vacation. To offset that anticipated drop-off in activity, Turner says hes talking to Spokane-area libraries and summer camps about offering Mad Science workshops. He also plans to increase his marketing for birthday parties.


The following summer, he hopes to set up Mad Science summer camps that the company would operate itself.


Before Rick was radical


Although Turner has been in business for just a few months, hes been known in some circles as the mad scientist for several years, he says. Prior to starting the franchise, he worked for 19 years in the quality assurance department at the Liberty Lake operations of Agilent Technologies Inc., formerly Hewlett-Packard Co.


Having grown tired of that job, Turner began searching for something else. He first ran across the Mad Science concept on the Internet about three years ago and excitedly told co-workers about it. They called him the mad scientist for the following couple of yearsuntil he quit his job to start the venture.


One might assume that Turner, with a wacky work name and a repertoire of wild lessons, is a natural entertainer, but he says thats not the case. While working in the corporate culture, Turner says he had a fear of public speaking. At one point, he even joined Toastmasters International, a public-speaking skill-development group, to calm his nerves, but it didnt help much.


With the kids, he says, its different.


They all yell, Its Radical Rick, and give me high fives as I walk through the door, Turner says. They ask me for my autograph. Its great.