The highlight of seventh grade for me was that we had a science
class. Before that it was a little nature or geology segment here and
there but nothing regular. Now there was an hour everyday dedicated
to science of all varieties and it was my favorite class. The teacher
was a single woman in her late thirties that was really vivacious and
fun like a non-magical Ms. Frizzle. She loved her job and teaching
kids and had fun with it which made it a great class. I liked the
scientific forum of a captive audience so much that not long after
the school year started I asked If I could do a presentation on the
phases of water for the class for extra credit. She said it would be
great if I wanted to do it the next Friday even though we both knew
it was not for extra credit because this is one class I never let
slip. When She told me I could do it I was very nervous it is what I
wanted but when I had it I was not sure if I had really wanted what I
got. I ran home after school as fast as I could conflicted between
the sheer exhilaration of getting to do a presentation and the terror
of public speaking. I started to assemble the demonstration
materials, I got some glass jars, I hotplate, and some ice made to
fit just snugly in the glass jars. All I needed was some liquid
nitrogen and I asked my mom to please get me some. She was hesitant
to get me liquid nitrogen for two reasons, it was extremely
expensive and it was extremely dangerous. We settled on some nice dry
ice. I had everything ready a week in advance and had written up a
script based on my research from the World Book Encyclopedia and had
all of my poster boards drawn and annotated. I was so excited I told
everyone I got to teach the class on Friday, a claim that all of the
other kids greeted with skepticism. So much so that they asked the
teacher if it was true and in that second before she answered in the
affirmative my heart sank thinking she may have forgotten or I
misunderstood and she was going to deny it. If she would have denied
it I would have cried left school and never come back, that was the
plan at least. She confirmed my demonstration with enthusiasm and I
was full up past my eyes with pride and excitement. When Friday came
I brought in all the stuff except the dry ice and regular ice because
my mom was going to bring that after lunch right in time for class.
When lunch was over I ran right to science class and started setting
up on the front table I was going from ice on the left to liquid in
the middle and vapor on the the right. My mom was supposed to be
there right at 12:30 and like many children I thought that meant she
would be in the building at 12:30. 12:35 rolled around and she was
still no there and a black smiley lump of terror that my mom had
forgotten, which she had done before on less important days started
to fill my heart and I started to hyperventilate a little. She showed
up before I died and she turned over the precious ices and stayed in
the back of the room to watch. I started the presentation by placing
the dry ice in the first jar and the ice in a pan to the side the
idea being that the dry ice would freeze the water in the jar
dramatically while the other ice melted showing the phase change to
and from ice simultaneously then I would turn on the hotplate and
boom! Steam. In my head it all took 60 seconds and was awesome in
real life it took forever and was not awesome The ice was melting
okay and the water with the dry ice was bubbling a little but it was
not freezing. The hotplate was not particularly hot on the water was
just sitting in that one. I was loosing the audience and they were
starting to fidget and chat so after ten minutes and my script and
data were long since spent I stood up dramatically and claimed I saw
Ice crystals and a little bit of steam coming off of the hot plate
water just to end my moment of not triumph. Instead of making me more
popular and interesting I think the kids were mainly bored and
uninterested but there is no accounting for taste right?
