To the rest of the world, Taryn Friedman is a business owner bent on spurring children's interest in science.

But to a classroom full of youngsters, Friedman is mad scientist “Lightning Lucy.”

On August 6, Friedman will go from a classroom to an airplane hangar as she dons Lucy's lab coat and presents at the Wiscasset Municipal Airport.

Friedman is participating in “Wings Over Wiscasset,” the freedom-themed day of fireworks, history, science, fund-raising music and the Texas Flying Legends Museum Warbirds.

“It's a great opportunity to expose kids to science and technology,” Friedman said. Her aeronautics presentation “Up, Up and Away” is set to start at 1:30 p.m. in Hangar 10.

Friedman is chief mad scientist and co-owner of Mad Science of Maine. The Portland-based business offers camps, school programs, and presentations at parties and other events.

The presenters, or mad scientists, gear scientific concepts to kindergarteners through sixth-graders. For example,  Friedman called Earth the biggest magnet of all.

“The key to our approach is making science hands-on and fun, and tapping into kids' natural curiosity about the world,” she said.

Although she keeps air pressure and other concepts at a kid-friendly level, adults in the audience often tell Friedman they learned something, too, she said.

With her father, grandfather and uncles all doctors, Friedman suspects all the science talk she heard around the house growing up probably sparked her own interest in it.

Presentations like the upcoming one at the airport can help do the same for other children, she said. She hopes some will choose to go into the  science field.

To learn more about Mad Science programs, visit www.maine.madscience.org.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or susanjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com