Every year, chemistry students create mole-related art in honor of National Mole Day. Some of the resulting art from Mole Day, like this stuffed mole, is kept in chemistry teacher Roxie Allen’s room.
Mole Art
Whether for extra credit, tradition or the opportunity to make puns, chemistry students create mole-themed art every year in celebration of National Mole Day.
Mole Day is so named after the unit of measurement, the mole, which equals 6.022 × 1023, hence the holiday’s celebration on Oct. 23.
“Some teachers actually celebrate it at 6.022, six in the morning,” Chemistry I (H) teacher Sarwat Jafry said. “I said, ‘I’m not going to do that,’ so we celebrate it during lunch.”
Every year, chemistry students create mole-related art in honor of National Mole Day. Some of the resulting art from Mole Day, like this stuffed mole, is kept in chemistry teacher Roxie Allen’s room.
Students’ ani-mole-themed art ranges from drawings and poems to songs and baked goods. One year, a class worked together to craft a life-sized mole out of cloth and stuffing.
“It was almost three times my size,” Jafry said. “We ended up having to dismantle it because it [created] some safety issues in the classroom.”
Another student sewed a stuffed mole modeled off “Carol” from the belovedly macabre safety poster. The poster depicts a woman who did not wear her safety goggles and consequently went blind. Accordingly, the mole toy sports black felt glasses and previously a walking cane.
According to Jafry, Mole Day gives students a unique way to celebrate science.
“Science is sometimes viewed by some students as being non-creative, so we like to make it fun with something like this,” Jafry said.