Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
June 18, 2021 12:02 PM
Like a chicken with its . . . well you get it. [Advanced.] by Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
Mary was a scattered mess. She'd somehow managed to get her own schedule wrong and the curriculum for the advanced students had a hole in it, leaving Mary to scramble about to fill the gap. Luckily, with RATS on the horizon for older students, there was a structure easily available to pull from and when she began setting up the classroom that day, it was with the satisfaction of knowing that her students would maybe probably hopefully not even realize she'd done this all last minute.Those who were taking advanced potions found the class set up mostly as usual, with desks around the room set up for two to three students to work together (or near each other at least). Today's desks featured two cauldrons each, with identical bubbling green liquids inside. Additionally, two beakers of liquid that was notably blood - both by sight and smell was that made evident - were labeled A and B on each desk. The chalkboard at the front of the room had a table with two columns drawn onto it, the tops labeled 'chicken' and 'salamander'.
"Hello, class," Mary smiled. "Today, I want you to work on a skill you'll use for your RATS and that is applicable in most professional fields that use potion brewing, making it useful regardless of where you go from here. In one of the beakers on your desks is chicken blood," she began, gesturing to the column she'd labeled thusly. "And the other is salamander blood. They aren't the same at each table, so you can't rely on eavesdropping for this one. Can anyone tell me what the potion is before you? I'll give you a hint and say that it's not yet complete."
Mary waited, calling on anyone who raised their hand. It was possible to identify potions by color, smell, texture, or by the fact that one of the ingredients on the table was used in only a few potions at all and that was a hint in and of itself. "This is a nearly ready strengthening solution, wherein the only missing ingredient is salamander blood." Mary paused, giving the class a wry smile as she let them piece today's puzzle together a bit. "Working with your partners, you'll be adding each of the beakers of blood to a different cauldron and comparing the results. Your homework will be to write about what you observe and some of the reasons this may occur the way it does.
You'll remember that chickens have around one billion base pairs in their DNA and salamanders have around 120 billion base pairs. That's a significant difference when you consider the amount of DNA present in each beaker of equal volume then. Salamander red blood cells are also significantly larger, around 66 micrometers in diameter, whereas chicken red blood cells are oblong and about 11.9 micrometers long by 7.1 micrometers wide. Take these things into account when you write your essays please." The chemistry of it all was important and her advanced students knew this, but she also knew this was where she lost a lot of them. Lecture days when they went over that material were the hardest but she was lucky to have a few students in particular who showed great interest in the theory of potions that way and even greater promise if their essays were much to judge by, let alone their practical work. It was exciting and encouraging for Mary to see such growth.
"So again, for today's class, add each of the bloods to one of the cauldrons and compare the results. You should get a satisfactory strengthening solution when you add salamander blood. Do be sure to measure," she reminded lightly, hoping she didn't have to. She'd measured it already but it was best for students to get into the habit of taking ownership of their own brewing practices. "Let me know if you have any questions!"
OOC: The science is for fun just because I thought it was interesting. Information about the strengthening solution can be found here. Notice that the potion is currently described as "green" - it should be turquoise when complete. There's not a lot more details so let's say the potion should smell metallic and be watery thin when complete. The chicken blood will make the potion thick and chunky but otherwise not change anything they can discern without sampling it. These details may be retconned (read: forgotten) in future lessons.
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Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
Like a chicken with its . . . well you get it. [Advanced.]
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