Tired of interminable lectures and an ever-growing pile of worksheets? A new club has recently been formed at Canterbury with the goal of bringing science out of the classroom and having hands-on fun with it. The Science Club meets on Tuesdays at 6 p.m. and offers opportunities to conduct creative and interesting experiments picked by student members. Mrs. Behan is the club advisor.
After discussing goals and choosing activities that interested the members, the club started off with a bang by swabbing various doorknobs, keyboards, desks, and even the inside of a shoe, and then growing bacteria samples from them. Also tested was the effectiveness of hand sanitizers, which were inserted into the petri dishes used to grow samples. Some members also swabbed their teeth to test the effectiveness of mouthwash, and it was a near-unanimous conclusion–don’t waste your money on Top Care!
Members also cultivated slime molds on petri dishes, motivating them to grow toward their favorite food, oat flakes. The slime mold loves tasty oat flakes, and will slime its way over to them and consume them. The molds were then placed in Mrs. Behan’s incubator to grow in the dark. As the days passed, the molds grew like crazy and have effectively taken over the incubator.
Another fascinating activity was the dissection of rats. The group even managed to find and dissect rat fetuses in the stomach of a particularly large preserved rat.
At the next meeting, an especially delicious event was planned. Members constructed a model of a cell entirely out of sweets. Cake served as the base, and frosting, candy, and cupcakes represented the cytoplasm and various organelles.
About her experience, club member Jane Wu said, “We have a variety of activities in the science club and we’re able to learn fun facts about biology and environmental science. It makes science fun. And there are snacks provided every time!”
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