Chemistry ThUrSday

Happy Wednesday! We are halfway done with the first week of Spira!

We started off the morning by finishing up the cardboard furniture projects from our industrial design unit. The 3 teams did an absolutely amazing job creating their pieces and we are incredibly proud of their work! The office furniture team created a desk whose legs contained storage space. The bedroom furniture team created a lounge chair that contained tons of storage and shelves underneath the seat. The nursery furniture team created a whale-shaped crib (accompanied by a mobile). All of the teams' designs embodied the main principles of industrial design: aesthetics, function, and value.

We then transitioned to our chemistry lesson, led by Izzy! Izzy taught about atomic structure and bonding as well as crystallization. The students then made their own pipe cleaner crystals.

After lunch, we had Kethu, an experienced Spira Rep and Spira alum, discuss inspiring women in STEM, the importance of mentors for girls in STEM, and her post-Spira high school experiences. She delivered an extremely helpful talk and we are grateful that she chose to volunteer for Spira again!

We then had a brief lesson about phase changes and freezing point in preparation for the creation of ice cream! All of the students created ice cream in plastic bags using milk, heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, salt, and ice. The results were spectacular and delicious!

We finished off the day with a couple Do-Now discussions led by Spira mentor Leslie. Tomorrow we will take a field trip to AS220 and learn about non-Newtonian fluids!