ELA Component: Narrative Essay
“Indicator Saver”
“What is the…exponent...atomic number…be careful…” The chemistry teacher’s voice faded in and out in my head as I focused on the red sponge that sat on the lab table. The indicator sponge.
I was slowly having a mental breakdown in my head over the countless assignments I have to do for both PBL and every other class that had homework piled on my shoulders. I turned my head straight to the teacher when I heard to be careful. We were getting ready to start on a new experiment and the chemistry teacher began to warn us over the cautionary things that could go wrong with the parts of the experiment. He spoke of acids and stressing the fact that he were to wear gloves.
I honestly had no idea what we were doing with the experiment so I constantly looked over at the things on the table and inspected them as I fixed the gloves on my hand which were becoming a hassle to put on.
As the people in the classroom began to walk around and collect different materials, the classroom began to resemble Times Square. There was so many people up I suddenly felt anxious...something was about to happen. I sat down and as did many other people when they realized there were way too many people walking around in the chemistry lab. The busyness simmered down to only two people collecting materials.
“I need some help over here.” Yaseem said. I turned around to see what he needed and followed him to aid in conducting the experiment.
“What do you need?” I asked. He handed me a flask as he scavenged through the cabinet to find the right size beaker.
“Can you start cleaning that as I look for a 500-mL beaker? For some reason the teacher likes to put them all the way in the back and I have to look for all of these things.” I nodded and walked over to the sink to wash out the flask. The person who used it last didn't quite clean it all the way; it looked like the last person just stuck it under water for a couple seconds and put it to the side.
Someone at the table next to me began to fill a beaker with a clear liquid and another with a different clear liquid. I rolled my eyes at the fact that he didn’t label the beakers, but I didn’t need to tell him that. His partner, Krissian, started to bicker at his lack of common sense and irresponsibility to label it. I couldn’t help but laugh at the whole situation.
The flask was finally clean when Yaseem finally found the beaker with a shout of success. He turned around to start the experiment with the two flasks in his hand. In the corner of my eye, I saw the same student who didn’t label the beakers walking across the lab faster than he should have been. The beakers were filled with the liquids and still didn’t have a label on him. He was probably trying to find a marker to label it, but was doing ill at following directions at the same time.
The next few seconds seemed to go in slow motion. I didn’t because even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. It was too late.
A loud clatter erupted in the classroom. All four beakers hit the floor. Both liquid contents were in two piles on the floor and glass was everywhere; shattered.
“Mr. Dursun!” I shouted. His attention ran straight toward the two students who were in the ring of glass. I couldn’t speak, mostly because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do.
“What are the liquids on the floor?” Mr. Dursun asked. I didn’t know the answer, and by the looks on the others’ faces, they didn’t know either.
“Umm…”
“He ran into me!” Yaseem defended himself. He was in full astonishment and couldn’t help but stutter. He was scared and looked worried about the trouble to follow the accident.
I tried to think of something to do, but it all got jumbled inside my head with PBL and every other assignment running through my head. Suddenly, the answer became clear with the cacophony of school assignments in my head.
I ran to the table to grab the indicator sponge and quickly walked back to the area.
“What are you doing?” Mr. Dursun asked.
“I have an idea,” I said. “the indicator sponge changes color based on acid or base. It will turn blue if it is and acid and stay red if it is a base. So if i dip it into the solutions on the floor, we can see how we should clean them up.”
Mr. Dursun smiled and nodded. “That’s a good idea.” He grabbed the sponge and dipped it into the pile of liquid in front of him. The sponge soaked up the liquid and maintained it red color. He carefully moved to the other pile of liquid and dipped the sponge in again. The sponge soaked up the liquid as it changed into a blue color.
“Now get up, but stay away from this liquid,” he said. “it is an acid.” The two students got up from the area while walking over the glass and liquids with only a single cut obtained on Yaseem’s right hand. From there, the tension in the lab lowered when the situation was slowly taken to control which was all possible with the indicator sponge.