These days, students can be under a lot of pressure to succeed. But on Monday, Jan. 23, kids at DeMello School learned that pressure can also be a blast.

The lesson came as part of a mad science show titled “Up, up and away” presented by “Jolting” Jonathan Breindel of Mad Science of Southern MA and RI.

Breindel, dressed in a lab coat and sporting a bushy beard, delighted the children with a series of demonstrations designed to explain as well as entertain.

After warming up the crowd with a magic trick involving a pair of self-tying strings, Breindel began his exploration of atmospheric pressure.

With the help of some brave volunteers, Breindel showed how the heads of two plungers could be stuck to each other using nothing but the vacuum created by pressing them together.

“It was a good group — a lot of fun,” Breindel said after the show, adding that the kids were “really well behaved.”

In another demonstration, a student learned how pressure could be distributed over a wide area to lessen the force exerted on a specific point by standing on a platform supported by only a few dozen small paper cups.

Breindel went on to show how a primitive hot air balloon could be made with nothing more than a hairdryer and a trash bag, and how a “cloud” could be formed in a water jug using water, air pressure from a bike pump, and a nucleation point in the form of smoke from a match.

He capped off the performance with a show-stopper: a hovercraft that used a leaf blower to create a cushion of air underneath it, allowing its rider to easily be pulled back and forth across the gym floor.

When the show was finished, the kids thanked Breindel with an enthusiastic round of applause and filed out of the gym, their heads filled with wonder and a newfound appreciation for the science of pressure.