Frazz by Jef Mallett for March 23, 2024

Reminds me of when I helped coach a youth soccer team. It was impossible to involve kids under third grade in any drills. You’d explain what you wanted, then see that the second-graders had lost interest and were off playing (and not playing soccer).

1st grade observators, not pontificators?

Cool analogy from a cool couple. They would know-it took a child to get them together.

Organic chemistry was fun! I have an uncle and late aunt who have PhDs in chemistry. They took us kids on a tour of Argonne National Labs, and that was cool!

Carbon.

Nice little snake. Earlier this week I came across 2 big beautiful red rattlesnakes either doing a combat ritual or a mating dance, hard to tell which it was. Quite exciting for a snake lover like me.

Demonstrations work better for early learners than explanations. They learn the words and motions that lead to the conclusion much better than just hearing the terms spoken aloud or read.

Organic chemistry is easy. I picked it up quickly in the course of my job in fuel systems engineering. Polymer chemistry is something else completely. When I went to contact lens manufacturing I was completely lost.

Amen

Ever notice how people’s eyes glaze over right after you say the words, let me explain….

Without organic chemistry we wouldn’t have the Maillard reaction.

There are currently 118 elements in the periodic table. Organic chemistry deals exclusively with molecules that feature only 1 of them: carbon. If an atom or molecule contains only elements from among the other 117, it’s in the realm of inorganic chemistry. Now, you might think that this would result in a vastly disproportionate amount of subject matter in one of those areas vs. the other. And you’d be right. But perhaps not in the way you imagined.

So a first-grader is telling a teacher that she doesn’t seem to be the competitive type. I guess because he has so much experience in who is and isn’t competitive. Sheesh.

He’s a first-grader? I would have thought he was in third at least.

How did he focus long enough to come up with the question?

Except for those of us kids who went from making things go boom, to pouring two clear liquids together to make sharp red-orange crystal needles. I’m no longer in the field, but I still find it entertaining, and it still brings back the feelings of wonder.

Organic chemistry was very interesting. And it is all so logical and elegant. And I can use it to explain biological principals and systems. But for some reason I cannot understand: I cannot answer the questions on the tests! (I got a C but it was only because I did so well in the lab)