what science teachers do in their spare time.

last night was Susan's birthday. Susan is one of the teachers I work with - she teaches civics and she invited me to join in her birthday celebration. I only knew two of the ten people who were there... who has time to learn other middle school teacher names when i still don't have my ninety five student's names straight? good times were had by all and Susan even got a birthday shot with another patron who had the same birth date as her.

when i got home the science experiments were already under way. I had been given a gummy bear lab where the kids are supposed to measure the gummy bear, soak it in water overnight, and then measure it again. right? Right. i know that the gummy bear is supposed to soak up the water and swell. being a good science teacher, yesterday at home i put one to the test, dropped it in a glass of water and forgot about it until morning. in the morning it was pretty much disintegrated. and gross. impossible to measure, and not of any notable size difference.

maybe overnight is too long. maybe it was the type of gummy bear? mom had picked up the biggest bag available at Walgreen's and they were swirly looking gummy bears. okay, revised the hypothesis, new materials, try it again. mom picked up two other brands of gummy bears and soaked them for two hours. by the time I got home it was approaching three. the two new brands (including the original brand) were just dissolving, the swirly ones had no change. I looked at mom's notes and at some point when she had remeasured the gummy bears the swirly one had gotten bigger. hmmm. time for one more trial before mom went to bed (one star hill draft and the worst meal ever (tell me that a burrito covered in gooey fake cheese is good for you? yuck i tried to scrape off as much cheese as possible, next time i will know better) and overworking and i was down for the count and going to bed).

so the final analysis is that the swirly gummy bears perform the best - but only up until 1 hour. then they dwindle. I told Lauren this morning what I had discovered and she thinks I am crazy, bc every time she does it the bears get huge and she left them one time over the weekend and they still worked. She thinks I need to use plastic cups, not glass? Could that really make a difference? I am skeptical.