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Published on 10/28/1996 All articles from this issue

MVHS chemistry moles invade the campus quad

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By Kristina Allen / Town Crier Staff Writer

Mountain View High School had an invasion of moles on campus last Wednesday with the arrival of Moledonna, Bob Mole and Molerose Place.

Chemistry students used creativity to celebrate Mole Day, an event inspired by Avogadro's Number. This number, 6.02 multiplied by 10 to the 23rd power, is a special number to chemists because it represents a group of atoms or molecules with a known mass. The number gives students a way to convert mass weight of something to number of molecules.

"The students create puppets, bean bags and other creations that play on the word mole," said Katie Thornburg, chemistry teacher who started this at the high school. "Every year I see a whole new crop of ideas and puns."

Thornburg brought this idea over to Mountain View last year when she transferred from Gunn High School in Palo Alto. The celebration is created by the National Mole Day Foundation and teachers use the ideas from the foundation to teach kids.

"This started out as just a little idea and has become one of the most popular academic events on campus," Thornberg said. "Even the non-chemistry students look forward to voting and have some basic knowledge of Avogadro and his number."

The mole creations were displayed in the quad during the lunch hour so that other students could vote for their favorites in four categories. Winners received a T-shirt inscribed with "Mole Chemists have more fun."

Winners in the four categories were: for puniest, Nathalie Wade and Janet Chang for their "Moleman" creation, a mole dressed as a mail carrier and stuffed into a red mail box; best character was "Happy Mole-u-ween" by Russ Pitkovsky; most school spirited was the "Spartan Spirit Mole" created by Frances San Agustin; and the winner in the non-standard size was "Molenator," constructed by Seth Greenstein, Jonathan Chan and Dat Tran.

"There were so many great creations and efforts that we felt some honorable mentions should be awarded," Thornburg said.

Chris Gunderson received an honorable mention for his "Molebert," a play on the comic strip character Dilbert. The display had "Molebert" sitting in front of his computer inside his cubicle.

"I decided to do Dilbert because the comic strip has characters like Dogbert and Catbert so why not Molebert," Gunderson said. "This is an interesting way to get a lesson across."

Honorable mentions were also awarded to Sarah Gerlinger for her "Peptobismole" and to Jeff Miller for "Molecaust."