A Chemistry project is taking over my living room!!!
Rosie is in the final days of a very unique school project. For Chemistry, she had to interview 3 family members about their life, and oh, btw, is there any chemical compound that has had an impact on your life?
Huh?
Rosie interviewed her grandfather and her grandmother and got some interesting family history out of them, but she was going to use me for the compound- because I'm a chemist. (Yes, there is life outside of being Abe and Rosie's mom!)
The first compound that I picked was Herceptin, the anti-breast cancer drug. The teacher nixed that one, she didn't want stuff about cancer.
So then I picked an epoxy resin (the main component) nicknamed DGEBA (d'gee-bah). That's something that I use at work and have created a new adhesive out of it that is being used in production. But no, the teacher didn't like that one either- not enough general applicability.
So the teacher picked Barium Sulfate, which is used in medical imaging studies of the gastrointestinal tract. And I gave Rosie a story about her Dad using it.
But that's not the annoying part (at least to me). As part of the poster about this compound, Rosie has to make a model of the molecule and also a model of the crystal stucture. We first went to the crafts store when she was still doing DGEBA. Let's just say that this was an expensive visit. Oops, wrong molecule! back to the store- it's a bit cheaper now, but do you know just how much an 8 inch ball of styrofoam costs?? ($15!!!) And the paints, and different ball sizes....
And now the painting and the toothpicking to put it together (at the right bond angles) and the construction paper and the print-outs.....
Argh!!! At least it's all due on Thursday so it will be out of my space!!
OMG, that sounds so complicated. glad rosie had a really good resource in you, didn't realize you were a chemist! but I know all about how those projects take over your house -- the psych teacher wanted a model of the brain, the fashion teacher asked the kids to design an article of clothing using comon household goods...won't miss that kind of thing when Becca goes off to college in the fall!
Posted by: songbird | May 25, 2010 at 09:42 AM