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Essay

The teaching power of water

Jessica Desamero
Oct. 23, 2024

Sometimes, I volunteer for the science outreach organization . Their monthly Saturday Science events offer interactive activities for children related to the theme of the month. 

A Saturday Science event in March focused on the body’s senses of smell, sight and touch. I looked at the activity stations around me and saw optical illusion flash cards and books, video simulations, a large set of spice jars and several microscopes.

Jessica Desamero volunteers at the deceptively simple “A Cool Activity” during the Saturday Science BioBus event in March that focused on the senses of smell, sight and touch.
Nour Mimouni
Jessica Desamero volunteers at the deceptively simple “A Cool Activity” during the Saturday Science BioBus event in March that focused on the senses of smell, sight and touch.

Then I was assigned to my station: three plastic cups of water. 

The cups held water at three different temperatures: hot, room-temperature and ice-cold. The children were to dip two fingers in the room-temperature water for 20 seconds, then in ice-cold water for 20 seconds, then back to the room-temperature water for 20 seconds. After the third dip, they’d say what they felt. If they were still interested, they could try again with hot water instead of cold.

The purpose of the activity was to experience how skin senses temperature and how past experiences influence present experiences. When children dipped their fingers in the cold water, their skin sensed this cold, and when they dipped their fingers back in the room-temperature water, they would feel a warm sensation at their fingertips — a quick, kid-friendly way to demonstrate body temperature regulation.

“Oh, that’s simple enough,” I thought. “It’ll be a short, one-minute activity.”

I questioned whether children would be very interested in this exercise; there wasn’t much to it.

Sure enough, the first child looked bored, and I could tell he wanted to move on. His mom, who was watching him, even remarked, “That’s it?”

The next few children behaved in a similar way; they took one minute to complete the first part of the activity, obtained their completion stamp and quickly moved on to the other stations. 

But as the event went on, I found that some children were taking longer at my station. Instead of just stopping after the cold water, they stayed to try the exercise with hot water. Many were eager and excited to put their fingers in the cups. One girl’s face lit up like a Christmas tree as soon as she felt the temperature difference at the third dip.

Some were also curious about what else they could try. One child put one finger in the cold water and one finger in the hot water at the same time. A few children were so amazed with the water activity that they brought their friends to the station to try the exercise and then did it again themselves. What seemed like a simple and quick activity turned out to be popular with the kids.

I recently learned that this water activity has been a station at many past Saturday Science events under slightly different names to match the themes. It never fails to garner interest. And after manning this station, I understand why.

Water may be a simple molecule, and sometimes you don’t think much of it. But water really is an effective teacher.

Read more

Read more articles and essays about our ASBMB Molecule of the year.

Water, you say?  Sephra Rampersad recalls a great scientist asking, what is the one critical component that could make or break your experiment in any lab?  

Water takes center stage Danielle Guarracino remembers the role water played at two moments in her life, one doing scary experiments and one facing a health scare.

What I’ve learned about water, aging and protein quality control  Alice Liu thought an increase in heat shock protein chaperones would prevent misfolding in Huntington’s disease proteins. The results surprised her, and water was the key.

The subtle strength of hydrogen bonds Indu Sridharan remembers how water complicated her atomic force microscopy imaging studies of collagen.

Water rescues the enzyme “Sometimes you must bend the rules to get what you want.” In the case of using water in the purification of calpain-2, Dorothy Croall writes, it was worth the risk. 

There are worse things in the water than E. coli E. coli levels determined whether Olympic swimmers could dive into the Seine this past summer. But are these bacteria the best proxy for water contamination? Andrea Luis investigates.

͵͵ impressions of water as cuneiform cascade Inspired by "the most elegant depiction of H2O’s colligative features," Thomas Gorrell created a seven-tiered visual cascade of Sumerian characters beginning with the ancient sign for water.

Virtual issue celebrates water in ASBMB journals Check out a dozen gold open-access articles covering exciting research about the society’s 2024 Molecule of the Year.

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Jessica Desamero

Jessica Desamero is a graduate of the biochemistry Ph.D. program at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She volunteers with the science outreach organization BioBus, and she is an ASBMB Today volunteer contributor.

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