Science Club on Labyrinth Gardens

Clark Dill

July 08, 2015 9:44 PM

Science Club by Clark Dill

Clark had spent the week following Ginger’s Astronomy lesson thinking about her suggestion to make an Astronomy Club. He liked the idea, but wasn’t sure if there was enough interest in Astronomy for it to draw in members. Plus, Clark already spent a good portion of his week doing Astronomy stuff for his Independent Study and wasn’t sure he’d be able to separate club-time from study-time, and that might push away some potential members who weren’t quite as into it as him.

So he thought he might expand the idea into a more general Science Club. Sonora was sadly lacking in science, so he thought that might attract both Aladrens interested in learning new things and muggleborns/half-bloods-raised-muggle who missed a ‘normal’ course of study or wondered how science and magic could co-exist. And it would provide more variety that just looking through telescopes and at planetarium like enchantments.

As he began drawing up potential activities, he grew increasingly convinced that this was the route he wanted to take for his club. He figured he should probably find a staff adviser, given that adult supervision may be required for such things as using the magical projector in the Astronomy room or setting up a bunch of school-owned telescopes, or - most especially - running chemistry experiments.

He had a few options for adviser, he figured. The first one he thought of was Pye, just because the new professor was his Head of House, and science seemed like a very Aladren type of topic, but Clark didn’t really like Professor Pye, so he went on to explore second thoughts. There was Professor Tallec who had them write up very scientific field journals in his class, and there was Professor Carter who knew a lot of different things (very good in a general science advisor) and was currently teaching Potions which was more like science than any other subject Sonora offered. Or he could try something a bit unexpected and ask Mr. Xavier, who had a herbology degree - a genuine magical science - according to some of the Sonora literature they got each summer to reassure parents that the staff was qualified.

He decided the potions experience and versatility was probably the best option to go with and when he asked Professor Carter whether she’d be interested, she had sounded satisfyingly enthusiastic about it.

With that settled, he made up announcements to advertise for the first meeting of his club, which were then displayed in all four common rooms (he’d requested the assistance of each Head of House other than his own and put up Aladren’s himself, so he felt pretty sure the others had been successfully posted) and the library. He’d chosen an evening when neither him or John Umland had library duties (he’d concluded John must be into science after their potions experiment the other day) for the first meeting and figured the group would work out further details from there. He had told Professor Carter that the first meeting would mostly be about figuring out an agenda for the rest of the year, and she could either attend or not, depending on her preference.

The announcements read as follows:

Science Club

Are you interested in finding out how the world works? Join us for Science Club on September 30th at 7pm in the Gardens! We’ll base this year’s program on the interests of those present, so come with ideas and hypotheses to test!

Potential club activities could include:
Astronomical Observation with Telescopes
Scientific Experiments in fields of interest
Geological and/or Herbological and/or Zoological Surveys of the Gardens
Giving Lectures on topics of interest (entirely voluntary)
Possibly Guest Lectures on topics of interest? (depending on availability and cost)

It was now the evening of the meeting, and Clark was nervously waiting in one of the Labyrinth’s larger clearings and hoping (a) people would actually show up, and (b) people who did show up would be able to follow the signs he’d left leading the way and not get lost. His chosen spot wasn’t far into the maze, but the Gardens were a big place, and he’d wanted to find a location that had some seating. Oh, and (c) that it wouldn’t suddenly start dumping rain on their heads, but it looked like the clear evening weather would stay dry, so that was a worry that had mostly plagued him earlier in the day and in the days leading up to tonight.

Soon enough, people began to arrive. Clark invited them to take seats on the edge of the fountain and on the park benches. Once he felt like he’d waited long enough for any late stragglers to arrive, he cleared his throat and clapped his hands together once to get everyone’s attention. “Hello, and welcome to the first meeting of the science club. As I said in the flyer, we’re mostly going to talk about what we want to do this year today, so we’re going to just start with going around the circle, and everyone can introduce themselves and say what kinds of sciences you’d like to explore with the club. I’ll keep track of any ideas people offer and tabulate what fields of study people like, and we can sort out what’s most popular once everyone’s had their say.”

“So, I’ll start with myself, as an example. I’m Clark Dill, a fourth year Aladren, and I’m most interested in Astronomy, Geology, and Physics. I’m doing an Independent Study for Astronomy, so I’d be happy to share some things I’ve picked up about that for the group, and I’m hoping there will be interest for a few after-dark meetings so we can observe the sky with telescopes. Also, I think it might be fun to do a geological survey of the Sonora grounds, and maybe do some physics experiments together. I was also thinking it would be interesting to have some of the professors come by and talk about some of the magical sciences they’ve been involved in. Professor Tallec, obviously, has some field experience studying magizoology, and Mr. Xavier majored in herbology.”

He turned to his left and nodded to the nearest person there to indicate they should go next. “Your turn.”

Subthreads:

Braving the Social Waters aka a Club by Lena Westley, Aladren

1 Clark Dill Science Club 277 Clark Dill 1 5

Lena Westley, Aladren

July 10, 2015 10:55 PM

Braving the Social Waters aka a Club by Lena Westley, Aladren

“Hello, I’m Lena Westley. I’m an Aladren, fourth year. I like biology, chemistry and anatomy. I don’t have any experience with astronomy but I do like space. That’s. . . sort of it.” For Lena this amount of speaking was worthy of praise. Her ending left something to be desired but for an amateur speaker it wasn’t the worst.

She’d seen the flyer Dill had posted in the library and then again in the commons. The only other place she visited frequently was the labyrinth so she, although not believing in signs, took it as one and gave the club a chance. This year she’d planned to spend more of her free time with Olivier but now that she found she couldn’t speak to him normally Lena turned to extracurriculars.

With the library assistant sign ups closed this science club popped up at just the right time. In the library she wasn’t talked to too much, though, perhaps being in a club would be too socially demanding. Then again it was science. This wasn’t a tea party, what talk there was would have actual merit to being spoken aloud and shared. It wasn’t an excuse to gossip about what new secret had cropped up on the walls of the academy. The club members would certainly have to be more learning oriented than that. Right?

Clark was in it. She’d volunteered for library assistant with him their second year. He talked too much sometimes but his cheeriness wasn’t as overwhelming as it once was. So the club had three things going for it: subject matter, a familiar face, and the much needed time outside her head she hadn’t had enough of recently.

7 Lena Westley, Aladren Braving the Social Waters aka a Club 279 Lena Westley, Aladren 0 5

John Umland

July 12, 2015 12:54 PM

Hopefully we won't drown. by John Umland

John had thought of starting a club a few times since he returned to Sonora, but all his thoughts had involved next year and none had, strictly speaking, involved science. The basic idea had been that old Archery Club hands might have some interest in a more general outdoor activities club, modeled along scouting lines because he knew about that and had some of Baden-Powell’s books at home to offer guidance for stuff he’d forgotten or never gotten to, as either a replacement for or supplement to their existing shooting club once its leader was gone. While they might keep shooting together for old times’ sake, John doubted the staff would be crazy about the idea of any of them teaching complete novices to do it. Games, a little tracking, and encouraging good turns, though, were much less potentially hazardous to people standing on completely the other side of the room even with the safety arrows they used, and even if they did get permission to teach new kids to shoot, John imagined a slightly wider focus wouldn’t hurt their appeal any.

Starting a club about science, though, had never occurred to him. Once, apparently as an act of God, a lifelong habit of not letting the left half of his life know what the right was doing hadn’t worked as well as it should have, but most of the time he had found safety and success in putting his knowledge of magic in a little mental box and hiding it in a deep cupboard his head when he was in the non-magical world and guessed thinking that way had become a bit of a habit. He had always hoped to find a few friends here that he could share his non-magical work with, often threw ideas at people in class to see if they would prove good candidates for that circle, but he had always pictured them almost as another secret society, friends getting together privately off the radar to explore mysteries their elders might not approve of. The idea of forming a group openly, with a staff advisor and official, regular meeting times and everything? It just hadn’t occurred to him and he doubted it ever would have.

It had, though, occurred to Clark. John suspected this said something about the kind of person each of them was that he really wouldn’t want to hear, but his suspicion was not enough to keep him from turning up in the Gardens, his latest notebook held in plain view, at the appointed time. After all, why shouldn’t they work openly? The whole point of a magic school was to have one place where young witches and wizards were safe and could study whatever they had the skill to learn without worrying that they would endanger their families or hurt someone without meaning to. Why shouldn’t those studies include physics as well as Transfiguration? Just because some people here didn’t know the former existed was no reason for the rest of them to ignore it; it would even be good for their more sheltered classmates, he thought, to find out more about the rest of the world. There were plenty of ways in which living in both worlds made John’s life more difficult, but he wouldn’t have traded it for ignorance and especially not willful ignorance.

There was still more than a hint of awkwardness, though, in how he cleared his throat and waved when it was his turn to introduce himself and state his interests to the group. “Hi. I’m, er, John,” he said, and half-expected everyone to reply hi, John in the simultaneous monotone of a support group. “I – well, I got started with science through ornithology, and that’s still a favorite of mine. Of course, cell biology’s kind of hard to do here, but I collect data on the avian populations out here at least twice a week, sometimes more – I can teach anyone the basics of that if you want to know, it’s not hard to get started, and I’ve got some ideas for using the data if we get enough of it,” he continued, now confidently, warming to his theme now that he felt he was on firmer ground. One of the things which had only occurred to him earlier today was that Clark, at least, had probably received a real scientific education where John was almost entirely self-taught. He had caught the bug from the Victorian explorers, not an astrophysicist. He had been a little worried when he started speaking that everyone in the group might be like Clark, only not as nice and so probably inclined to think of him as a pretentious little idiot who had no place among the real nerds, but now he was on a roll. “I started reading some physics and chemistry in first year, and some astronomy last year, too,” he added, looking back at Clark now. His dad had taught him the constellations when he was little, but he didn’t think that really counted as anything but a reason to be fond of Dad; it was the first thing they’d ever really done together, but he didn’t think it could count as the beginning of a formal course of study. “Arguing about any of that and doing some experiments would be great. I think that’s all for now,” he concluded.

16 John Umland Hopefully we won't drown. 285 John Umland 0 5

Ginger Pierce

July 14, 2015 1:57 PM

I may already need a life vest by Ginger Pierce

Ginger was kind of nervous about attending the science club. Firstly, she wasn't really into science, so that didn't help at all. Secondly, she wasn't really smart enough for science. She wasn't stupid or anything, but in her muggle school, science was one of the classes she needed some extra help in because her brain just didn't work in the way science people thought. She was just a bit too left-brained and not enough right-brained, she supposed. Thirdly, though this was a lesser problem, she was a Teppenpaw and she was kind of expecting everyone else there to be Aladrens. Science was nerdy. Aladrens were nerdy. Teppenpaws? Not really known for their nerdiness. It just worked out that way.

But she was here. She was here because this club was at least partly her idea. She had been the one to encourage Clark to start it. Granted, she'd said she thought he should do an Astronomy Club, but he'd taken the idea and made it bigger, which he was totally within his rights to do because it was his club, but Ginger still felt like she should come to support it, and while she could get behind Astronomy, Science was a bit more intimidating to her.

She was at least partly right. The first three people to speak were all Aladrens, with sciency interests. One of them was also a girl, too, which was a little surprising but a lot reassuring. Lena had been all over the life sciences, which Ginger could respect. Life was good.

"Um," Ginger said when John finished talking and she was up next. "I'm Ginger, second year Teppenpaw. Um, I'm here for the telescopes, I guess. Some of the other ideas sound good, too," she granted, but didn't want to say what sounded good because, quite frankly, she had no idea what the science was that John seemed most interested in - orthomotology? who used words like that? besides John, apparently - and she didn't want him to feel left out just because she had no idea what he was talking about. "I don't know much about science, really," she admitted, "but learning new stuff is neat. And herbology is good. I like plants." Mostly for eating, admittedly, since she was 95% vegetarian, but she liked gardening, too, and that wasn't too far off herbology, was it?

She looked over to the next person and gave a little wave to show she was done and it was now their turn.

1 Ginger Pierce I may already need a life vest 302 Ginger Pierce 0 5

Theodore Wolseithcrafte

July 26, 2015 2:30 AM

Neither waving nor drowning by Theodore Wolseithcrafte

Joining clubs was something that Theodore had never found much motivation to do. Partly, the majority of clubs at Sonora just did not interest him, but further to that, he preferred his own company the majority of the time. Archery had come closest to piquing his interest - it was something he would take satisfaction in doing well at, certainly - but the thought of chit-chatting with a lot of other people whilst doing it had put him off.

Clark’s suggestion of a science club, however, had truly caught his attention. It was a club which was, by its definition, likely to centre on having serious and interesting conversations. Whilst Theodore kept to himself, he enjoyed the company of others when there some substance to it. He had found such interaction to be a hit and miss process at Sonora, governed mostly by the luck of who you sat with, and how in the mood they were for taking the day’s subject matter seriously. Something that promised a regular dose of quality human interaction was very promising, especially as he had resolved to expand his social circle beyond his sister - whom, after this year, he would no longer be able to depend upon for company.

The club, perhaps, was not totally reputable. Science was thought of as being rather Muggley - the word was used, he thought, in higher areas of academics; methods had to be scientific, certain things were considered magical sciences, but it was a much larger field of study, a more common noun, he was given to understand, in the Muggle world. It was their equivalent of magic - the way they made their daily lives function. If this turned out to be a club dedicated to such forbidden knowledge, run and attended by a gaggle of students from all the worst backgrounds, he might find himself backing out rather quickly. However, Clark’s poster had mentioned astronomy and herbology (admittedly, amongst other things), which were perfectly respectable.

As he took his place, he was heartened, though surprised, to see Miss Westley was also in attendance. She was an Aladren, and so he supposed a reasonable amount of academic inclination could be assumed on her part, but he had no real ideas about her or her interests. She was rather a quiet girl, and often kept the society of her twin when she did seek company. Between that and his own limited interactions with the world, he supposed it wasn’t surprising that the two of them had not got to know each other better. Perhaps the science club could change that. Unfortunately, the place next to her was taken, but he gave her a smile and a polite nod - a suitable substitute for a bow, which would have looked most peculiar under the circumstances - and took a seat next to Jemima’s little friend.

A few of the introductions pushed him outside of his comfort zone. Long words were not a problem for him, but some of the branches of science were unfamiliar to him, much less how one might test or investigate them. It was an unfamiliar feeling, having his knowledge outclassed by people younger than him, and he found it fundamentally unpleasant. It suddenly seemed a stroke of luck to have Ginger next to him, as she seemed by far to have the least idea what to suggest, although she did so with such openness and enthusiasm that he could see why she and his sister had instantly bonded. He gave her a little smile as she passed the introductions on to him.

“Hello. I’m Theodore Wolseithcrafte. I am an Aladren fifth year,” he stated, feeling slightly ridiculous not only because he was quite sure everyone already knew that, and because it marked him out as, so far, the only person older than the club president. It created an odd sort of dynamic, he felt. “I am keen to learn more about astronomy and herbology, given that these fields are lacking in the Sonora curriculum. I like the idea of taking surveys in the gardens. I have not specialised in any particular subject areas but it already seems that the club has a very diverse knowledge base from which we can surely all learn something new.” He didn’t want to come out sounding like he was keen to learn physics or any other Muggle science but it seemed rude to not acknowledge the areas that had already been mentioned in some way. Having managed with this reasonable compromise, he turned to the next person.

13 Theodore Wolseithcrafte Neither waving nor drowning 270 Theodore Wolseithcrafte 0 5