#38: The Requisite Holiday Post

Some examples of fun, festive #SciArt for the holiday season - plus, a possible photo print draw and scheduling announcement!

Perhaps it’s a tad predictable, but if you’ve been a reader of Campfire Notebook, you are likely not surprised that today’s post is a show-and-tell of holiday science and art.

Make sure you scroll to the end for a couple important announcements!

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Tasty Research Participants

First, take a look at this very important experiment.

Photo credit. Amanda Runion (@akrunion)

The kids make predictions, then test their hypotheses, as to whether a gingerbread man will crumble when exposed to water. Adorable.

Of course, it’s important to understand the anatomy and physiology of your research participants. These students took a class to map out internal organs.

Photo credit: Rachel Robinson (@ms_rrobinson)

Eat your heart out (literally), Grey’s Anatomy.

Rocking’ Around the Chemistree

It’s important to decorate the lab or classroom, too. OChemistree is an annual competition where contestants are challenged to create Christmas trees out of chemistry lab equipment, or decorate a standard tree in a chemistry theme.

You can check out this year’s winners - announced just last evening! - on the official OChemistree page. There are some cool ones that use corn syrup and a polarizing filter to create a rainbow effect, although I’m rather partial to this one that uses a chemical reaction involving sodium polyacrylate to add snow to the scene.

Chemical Kim ⚗️🌈🦅 @chemical_kim

Decorating the #Chemistree 🎄 #happyholidays

Festive Fault Lines

Even engineers will get into the festivities!¹

I found a number of examples of gingerbread houses being designed in the hopes of withstanding tectonic plates shifting. Using an earthquake simulator such as in the video below, engineering students test the structural integrity of their creations. (I don’t know why they’re doing that, when they could just have me build the houses for them...)

It Came Upon a Microbe Clear

Last but not least, I’ve found some very cool microbiology science-art pieces - such as this composite star made up of various microbes, lit up thanks to fluorescence:

Photo credit: Eliza Woodson (@eliza_coli)

Or perhaps you’re more of a paper crafter? In that case, you’ll enjoy festive phages by Rob Edwards. (Phages are helpful viruses that go around and gobble up bacteria - very cool, and useful when antibiotics no longer work…)

Photo credit: Rob Edwards (@linsalrob)

Most of these are examples that take place in schools, which makes me more than a little jealous that I never got to do these kinds of science classes. Did you ever participate in a holiday-themed science class? If so, what did you do?

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The Birthday Puffin Print Draw!

If you recall in #33.5 Six Months Around the Campfire, I wanted to gift a print I made if I reached 100 subscribers by today.

#33.5: Six Months Around the Campfire

Well, as of publication, there are 110 of you sitting with me around the campfire. Thank you, and welcome!

The lucky winner of the print is…Kiri Hargie! Congrats, and thanks for subscribing. The puffins will be flying south to you very soon.

And to all of you, thanks for reading my newsletter for the past seven months. I’ve really enjoyed sharing my writing and moreover, chatting with you around the campfire.

I’m going to take next week - Dec. 29 - off, but will return on Jan. 2 with my last letter to Camille Prairie in our series, then back to our regular publishing schedule on Thursday, January 5.

Happy holidays, and best wishes for a kind and beautiful New Year.

Bryn xx

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1. Odd, I know.