fandomhigh | 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!]

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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."

Discovery & Invention, Period 5, 9 Jan '08

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