STEAM Expo

Last year, I built a chaos tower which was... chaotic to say the least.

But this year, we are transitioning to a more common household product - a toolbox. I'm thinking of wearing a tool belt and hard hat but I'm also thinking that's overkill.

Anyway, by designing and building an original tool box with the help of Mr. Gockley, I plan to combine architecture with science. The science part is, well, the worms. And the architecture would be the physical toolbox. The box will be a rectangular prism with the cover having a c. elegans shaped window. Inside the box will be a wire, cotton ball, green Christmas light combination of a worm. Here are the plans for building the box:

The "so-what" has a lot to do with my last journal - finding a place for ourselves in this crazy, messy world. Although that notion of self-awareness in the face of EVERYTHING ELSE is my personal message, there is another more readily found one: the value of model systems.

Model systems - C. elegans as point of reference - give us the tools to advance in knowledge and understanding. But they also possess implications beyond their own epithelial tissue cuticles.

And that can be applied to people too. A single person may feel insignificant or lacking in influence but that shouldn't (and doesn't) mean we don't have a place in all of this. Our roles exist and it's our duty to make the most of them. (248)