Mole Day 2018 Preview

T-minus 23 hours and 22 minutes until one of East’s most treasured traditions. To chemistry teacher Jerrod Bardwell, it’s the one day a year when students are excited to wake up hours before school starts to celebrate something school related. 

On Oct. 23, chemistry students, teachers, and anyone else interested will meet in the cafeteria by no later than 6:02 to celebrate mole day — the SI unit of measurement for the amount of particles in a substance. The mole is represented by Avogadro’s number, 6.022 * 10²³, which corresponds to Oct. 23, at 6:02 a.m. for the celebration.

According to Bardwell and fellow chemistry teacher Steven Appier, the mole is crucial to chemical experimentation. With the knowledge that one mole of a substance always has the same amount of particles, and knowing the mass of one mole of an element, a chemist can weigh a substance and use that information to find the number of particles inside it.

“The mole allows us to do something that’s absolutely impossible to do without it,” Appier said. “When you work with as small of particles as we do — atoms, molecules, ions — you can’t count those physically.”

“Definitely impossible for high schoolers,” Bardwell said. “Otherwise there would be blood everywhere.”

To do such a value justice, the chemistry department works hard each year to make the annual gathering as dynamic as possible. Mole day has become a ritual of sorts at East, and one that both Bardwell and Appier believe is a can’t-miss experience, unique to East students.

“We do mole day like no one else does mole day,” Appier said. “You’ll never really know quite what you missed afterwards if you don’t go.”

“It’s one of those things you do in high school just to say you did it,” Bardwell said.

Bardwell’s most memorable mole day came his first year at East. He remembered performing a play with mole puppets at one of his previous Blue Valley schools and thought East’s rendition would be something similar — about ten kids and awkward conversations with chemistry teachers in the cafeteria. As it turns out, Bardwell was very wrong.

“It was just packed. 300 kids going crazy with horrible puns and I remember thinking, this is not normal,” Bardwell said. “Why are people here this early? The idea of teenagers getting out of bed early was crazy to me.”

Appier says there isn’t really one best mole day at all, but rather that they just keep improving. The best year is always the one that just happened. 

This year’s nationally chosen theme is Moley Potter — a chem-infused spin off of J.K. Rowling’s book and movie series. Each chemistry one class has been assigned a house: Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw. At the party, they’ll be able to earn points for their respective houses by playing games like Mole Toss, Whack a Mole, Molesical Chairs, Butterbeer Pong, and Basketmole — each event relating to Harry Potter in one way or another.

If you don’t feel like playing games, there’s always an abundance of food. 300 donuts, 200 bagels with cream cheese, butterbeer, and Ms. Thomas’s famous chips and guacamole are some of the main features on this year’s menu.

Both teachers know it’s all a bit dorky — but to them, dorkiness goes hand-in-hand with the annual celebration of Avogadro’s number. AP and IB chem students begin to set up at 4:45 a.m. while the rest of the students come at 6:02 to have a science party, all set to the backdrop of chemistry tunes like “The Electromagnetic Spectrum Song” and “Flame Test.” It’s tradition.

“I’m not saying or pretending it’s the coolest thing you’ll ever do in your life, but it’s the only chance you’ll ever have to do it,” Bardwell said. “People say, ‘oh it’s nerdy, I’m not going to do it.’ Come on, you’re taking chemistry. You’re doing nerdy crap already, you’ve passed that line.”