Today was the first day of the biomedical science workshop at Shodor. Many
of the students had been in the morning workshop and had lunch as a group, so they
entered the classroom at the same time and went to their computers. Sam started them off
with a game to help people introduce themselves. In this game, each student took a name-tag
that wasn't their's and wandered around the room looking for the person that corresponded to
the name-tag they were carrying. Everyone sat down again and Jeff talked to the class about
chemistry in living creatures to introduce today's lesson plan.
Jason's lesson was more hard-core chemistry than Jeff's. He showed the class basic
chemical notation for different types of molecules. The class copied all the molecules he
drew onto sheets of paper. They then logged onto the computational chemistry server and
made a molecule online. About half of the students had already done this in the morning, so
the exercise went quickly. The students were then handed cups of skittles. They went out to
wash their hands before handling the skittles. When they came back, Sam explained how to
make molecule models with the different colored skittles and toothpicks.
The students ate their skittles during break. The students were very suspicious of
people who might steal their skittles, and many students continued to make accusations after
break. The final molecule type built in today's workshop was the human molecule. Everyone
went out to the plaza where they split into two groups and made two molecules. The human
molecules didn't really look like molecules from a distance, but it was a fun experience for
the students.