CHEMISTRY 101

I suppose that when one reaches the fall of their years it is normal to look back at the spring and summer months to reminisce on those things most memorable.  High school and the several events of those happy, youthful years are foremost on my list of memories.

In my junior year of high school, I enrolled in Chemistry 101 as a pre-college requirement along with some of my close friends and fellow athletes.  Our teacher, “Jake”, as she was affectionately known to us, was highly qualified no doubt having given her entire life to the profession without ever marrying.      

Jake placed my two friends and I in the rear of the combination laboratory and classroom along with another student who had a slight learning difficulty.  One might reach the conclusion she was showing her disdain for athletes or she had recognized us as troublemakers, but I would like to believe she recognized our collective intellect and gave us the opportunity to explore new avenues of chemistry beyond the boundaries of our chemistry textbook.
 

Aided by the fact each of us had received a Gilbert Chemistry Set as a gift sometime during our youths, we were able to put our collective knowledge together and within two weeks of the start of the class year, we had already developed an industrial strength cleaner and rust remover. We mixed together a sample of each chemical on the shelves of the classroom with a name ending in `Acid’.  This cleaner and rust remover was tested extensively in the classroom by placing small samples, living and otherwise, into the large jar and maintaining a journal of how long it took for the item to dissolve.  It was also found useful removing license plate bolts that had become severely rusted between annual replacement.  

We also developed the “Paper Reduction Act” long before the idea became popular with the U.S. Government.  We were able to reduce the page count of textbooks by pouring a small amount of sulfuric acid onto the ends of closed books or into their interior, and within one week, the number of pages was reduced immeasurably.
 

One of the classroom’s tasks was to make a jewelry cleaner solution that was akin to a strong industrial soap.  At our table, we were able to produce a more efficient jewelry cleaner by adding a dash of hydrochloric acid.  To test our cleaner, I volunteered my girlfriend’s gold plated ID bracelet.  The cleaner was a success, but she was not happy when I returned her ID bracelet that was now a bright and shiny sterling silver.  I reluctantly sacrificed my savings in the name of science to have the bracelet plated gold once again.     
 

Early in the school year when we were issued our supply of glass dishes, reagent bottles, glass tubing, and other supplies to conduct laboratory experiments, Jake also demonstrated how to make eyedroppers needed for various coming experiments.  
 

Our table discovered that by extending the heated glass tubing farther before snapping apart, the aperture size could be decreased to a pinhole.  When this was fitted into the end of rubber tubing attached to the laboratory sink, we produced a non-lethal device capable of directing a jet of water with a flat trajectory the length of the classroom, and this led to the development of a non-toxic ink eradicator.
 

This device was effectively demonstrated in the classroom many times especially when a student held up a page of class notes written in ink permitting the ink eradicator to wash the ink from the page with one silent shot.  
 

Our table also developed the automatic classroom evacuation tool.  It was activated by dropping several copper pennies into a beaker of nitric acid to create a voluminous, heavy brown cloud of (poisonous) gas that billowed from the beaker that signaled the teacher to take the students from the classroom without any clamor of bells or sirens that did not disturb all of the classrooms on the floor.

In late October when the apple orchards were producing their delicious apple cider, Chemistry 101 acquired a gallon jug of cider for the purpose of producing alcohol to be used for classroom experiments.  The still was placed at the rear of the classroom and it was an easy matter to switch the bottle collecting the product between classes so our table collected the lion’s share of that produced.   Jake was concerned the still was making so little alcohol and was heard to confide in other teachers the alcohol was evaporating because the still was exposed to the sun.  

Using Coca-Cola purchased from the school’s soft drink machine, we toyed with the development of a mid-morning pick-me-up tonic guaranteed to rejuvenate the sleepiest of individual regardless how late they stayed out the night before.  Before we could make any improvements to our tonic, the still was disassembled.  

In the spring of that year when nature was wakening from its icy grasp, we stepped outside the boundaries of chemistry into the study of  physics with our experiments on flight in the chemistry classroom by periodically testing captured flying insects for their load bearing capacities..
 

Narrow strips of tissue paper were glued to the insects and then released. The trailing strips of paper permitted tracking and the durations of each flight were closely monitored by the students and we made adjustments to the length of the strips accordingly.
 

At the end of the school year, we did not receive nor did we expect to be rewarded for our discoveries, and our teacher, Jake, was in total agreement.  After her warning that she was inclined to give us failing grades, she had second thoughts when she considered we would return to repeat the subject so she relented and awarded each of us with a C minus allowing us to continue our association with the school’s athletic programs.