Super Molio Brothers: A look into this year’s Mole Day

AP and IB Chemistry 2 students are hosting the 27th annual Mole Day celebration on Oct. 21 at 6:02 a.m. The event was moved to Friday because Oct. 23 landed on a Sunday this year.

This year’s theme for Mole Day is “Super Molio Brothers,” based on the video game franchise Super Mario Brothers. Participants will play games, such as Whack-a-Mole, Molio Chase, Mole-sical chairs and more, which the IB and AP Chemistry 2 students will organize.

Mole Day is held for students to become more involved and interested in chemistry classes. Mole Day is based on Avogadro’s number, or the mole — a unit in chemistry used to measure small entities such as atoms where 6.02 x 10^23 formula units make up one mole.

“It’s a fun activity that gets you through chemistry, and bonds [you] with the other students in your class and your teacher,” co-head organizer of Mole Day and AP Chemistry 2 student Anna Thelen said. “Its [goal] is to unite all the chemistry students together.” 

When no one else volunteered to plan Mole Day, Thelen and co-head organizer, Abi Limbird, jumped on the opportunity. Their experience with Mole Day last year as Chemistry 1 students gave a positive impression to chemistry, even contributing to Thelen’s choice to take AP Chemistry 2.

“[Mole Day] made me close with my class, [and] if I didn’t have something to talk about, you could just bring up Mole Day,” Thelen said. “It was also something fun to look forward to for Chemistry 2.”

Although the idea of Mole Day has stayed the same since the first Mole Day in 1995, chemistry teacher, Steven Appier — who was present for the first Mole Day at East as a teacher — says that Mole Day has become especially popular within the last 15 years.

“[Mole Day has] become an event now,” Mr. Appier said. “Originally, we had probably about 40 or 50 students… We had donut ‘moles’ and juice [and] we watched some worldly chemistry videos… It wasn’t a big celebration like it is now.”

Last year, an estimated 200 to 250 students attended Mole Day, according to Appier. A similar-sized crowd of students is expected for this year after receiving $500 worth of “Super Molio Brothers” T-shirt orders from Chemistry 1 students.

While all Chemistry 1 students who arrive at the event before 6:02 a.m. will receive enrichment points and Chemistry 2 students get graded on the organization of the event, it’s so much more than a grade according to Appier.

“[Chemistry 1 students] think, ‘Oh god, I’m gonna go to get my enrichment points,’” Appier said. “But then you can’t believe the number of people [who say], ‘Mr. Appier, that was actually fun!’”