fandomhigh | Discovery & Invention, Period 5, 9 Jan '08

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Discovery & Invention, Period 5, 9 Jan '08

"Good afternoon," Mohinder was leaning against the board at the front of the classroom; list in hand he wondered which names matched which faces.

"As some of you may already know, I am Dr Mohinder Suresh, and this is Discovery and Invention. My background is in genetics, but this course will, I hope, take your interest in at least one of the branches of our scientific tree." He handed out the syllabus as he spoke. "I'm available after class and during my office hours and feel free to talk to my TA, Max Guevara."

Tacked up on the board behind him was a long list. Mohinder pointed back it. "A great deal of science is experimental, organisational. Asking the question is the first step to discovering the answers, and classifying something can be our first step to understanding it." He nodded. "Even ourselves."

"Science must be repeatable, and our results verifiable if we are able to discover anything." Mohinder continued to discuss the scientific method, finishing up by perching on his desk and popping open a pack of M&Ms. "So, to practice your skills. The sweets in front of you - hypothesize. How many there are in a bag? What many colours? How heavy? Acidic or alkali?" Mohinder gestured at the M&Ms in front of each student. "Compare with your fellow students. Can you extend your results? Are your results proof enough of your theory?"

[OCD is up, have at it!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Name and science branch, please.

Cindy Mackenzie, computer science.

Edited 2008-01-09 14:21 (UTC)

Max Guevara, genetics

Sokka, "science" -- Mostly simple mechanical and chemical engineering.

Pam Beesly...biology? She'd done okay in bio back in Scranton.

Coraline Jones, undecided

Lucas Scott, no clue

Naomi Wildman, Astrophysics

Rodney McKay, ~~Ancient Technology~~ Astrophysics

Claire Bennet. Genetics.

Hermione Granger, interested in everything

Edward Elric, alchemy

Peter Parker, chemistry but with a special interest in biology and genetics.

Talk, listen, doodle?

Mac was listening and taking notes. She's just a conscientious student like that.

This was Max's first experience in a classroom that wasn't Manticore. She was looking around for cues from her fellow students on proper behavior.

Notes, definitely notes. Sokka took lots of them.

Pam was taking copious notes.

That said, she wasn't above doodling in the margins, too.

Naomi took careful and detailed notes.

Hermione took notes as usual, way too gleeful at new classes.

Peter was taking notes. This was the kind of class that seemed to be aimed right at him, so he was making a point to pay even more attention than he usually did.

Talk amongst yourselves and try not to eat your experiment.

Arrangement of M&M's into piles pf separate colours is some kind of scientific method, right? She hasn't tried eating them yet, which seemed like a good start.

With a glance, Max was able to tell exactly how many M&M's there were and each color.

Sokka immediately came up with a few theories:

1) All M&Ms weigh approximately the same amount.

2) The total weight of each bag of M&Ms is always equal to the number printed on the bag.

3) All bags of M&Ms contain approximately the same number of M&Ms.

4) Each bags of M&Ms contains approximately the same number of M&Ms of each color.

1 and 2 he'd need a scale or balance or something to check, so he ignored them for now and set to work dividing his bag into piles by color and counting them.

He was about to revise theory 4 -- because his bag contained SIGNIFICANTLY less blue than other colors -- when he realized his mouth tasted like chocolate.

He raised his hand. "Can I have another bag? I accidentally ate some of mine."

Mohinder may have sighed or smiled, he wasn't sure. He wasn't suprised, though.

"How do you accidentally eat something?" Mohinder asked as he tossed a spare bag of candy to Sokka. "Try not to; with most of the experiments in this class that wouldn't be a good idea."

"It's FOOD," Sokka exclaimed, as if that explained everything. "It's food and it was on the table in front of me. What do you THINK's going to happen to it?"

Mohinder didn't roll his eyes, instead he looked at the scattered M&Ms on Sokka's desk. "Why the blue ones?" He leaned back. "Is there a marked difference in taste or composition?"

"No, I just like the color," Sokka replied. "But that's an interesting question."

He carefully sampled a few of each color. "Nope, no difference."

Coraline opened her bag of M&Ms, carefully counted how many there were, then how many of each colour, noting the numbers down. Then she divided the weight listed on the bag by the number of M&Ms to come up with an approximate weight for each.

By which point she was rather bored with measuring M&Ms, so she divided them into two piles, drew a grid on a piece of paper, and started playing draughts with them.

Sokka, still munching on his M&Ms, scooted his chair up to his new little sister's desk. Sitting wrong-way-round on it, he leaned on the chair back and looked at the checkerboard. "Whatcha doing?" he asked.

"Scientifically examining whether M&Ms are good for playing draughts," she said, looking up with a smile for her big brother. "Red and green and brown against yellow and blue and orange. Do you want to help?"

[ooc: I will be sporadic and sloooow, cause work hates me.]

"Drafts?" Sokka scratched his head. "Is it anything like chess? Yeah, I'm in -- just go over the rules, real quick?"

[No prob. :) *hates work back*]

"I think its called checkers here." Coraline set up two rows of M&Ms, one at each end of the grid. "We take turns trying to capture each others M&Ms by jumping over them, but you can only move one space at a time, unless you can capture more than one piece in a row. You can go first."

Sokka blinked at her blankly. "Yeah, okay. Never heard of it." He shrugged and moved a piece a completely illegal space directly forward. "So... they move just regular, or diagonal, too?"

"You can only move in a diagonal, not straight forward," she explained. "And you can't go backwards unless you make it all the way to the other end. Then your M&M becomes a king. It can still only go diagonally, though."

"Ohhh, okay," Sokka said. "Hmmm."

He moved the piece back to its starting position and stared at the board. And stared at it some more. And eventually moved the same piece, but a legal move this time. "Beat THAT!"

Coraline studied the paper board and the colourful pieces, and slid a piece diagonally forward. "I think any we capture, we should eat," she said. "So it's a proper scientific examination."

Sokka grinned and moved another piece. "Well, but of course. Proper and scientific, after all."

Rodney carefully recorded all of his observations about his M&Ms and used the data he had collected to make a few charts showing his results. Then he ate the entire bag.

Edward eyed the small pile of M&Ms, doing a few measurements and then clapped his hands together and transmuted them into a small block of wood.

Peter did took notes on a number of tests. Color, weight, clarity of the 'm' on the candy shell, quality of the candy shell, how long they would stick to his hand when he was using his powers on them, how glad he was that they were using M&M's and not Skittles because those would make his hand all sticky (in a non-spider way) and gross.

When she pings in.

Max was there. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to really do, but she could handle talking, she supposed. As long as people didn't ask too many questions.

He's over here.

The space for OOCness

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Discovery & Invention, Period 5, 9 Jan '08

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