Big Think

Topic: My First Science Experiment

Dr. Yvonne Will:  Oh yeah it was hilarious.  So I don't know that this was the first one because I'm sure we had to do many in school you know in seventh grade.  And oh yeah, we did a funny one.  Want to hear this one?  So we are at summer school and we had to take physics.  Physics was really not our favorite and they had made the mistake of, of having a Bunsen Burner in there and we thought, oh, we're just going to take the teacher for a ride.  And we brought in a frying pan and an egg.  We held it over the flame and I think we had to show up at the principal's office afterwards but that was good experiment.  So, but-- so I think the first real experiment I did by myself, was really during that time where I was at that Rhines [ph?] Academy at that private school and we got to do our first very independent science project for two weeks, all day, all night.  And it was evolved somewhat around the counterparts for mitochondria which were chloroplasts and I remember that I was trying to isolate them from spinach.  So you had to illuminate the spinach after you had spent the morning at the farm trying to pick it.  And then you had to close all the curtains to do your experiment because you couldn’t get light on them.  So I remember that.  That was fun.

Recorded on: 06/25/2008