This final week for presentations, Collette, Valentin, and I baked our bread based on the different grain we were researching. Since my grain was wheat, I made rosemary no knead bread from week 2 that Professor Vesna lectured on. Below are some pictures I documented of the process. In order to allow the bread to rise, I had to put it away in a warmer area for 6 hours.

Tuesday we had a tour of the meteorite gallery and learned that meteorites are extraterrestrial rocks that travel through interplanetary space. Described to traverse the atmosphere and land on the surface of the earth. Meteorites that are observed to fall are called "falls" during the atmospheric passage, they create bright fireballs and generally sonic booms. There are about 1300 observed falls in the world's collection.

During week 7, we were given time to work on our project Tuesday. For the final project, I have been researching the grain: wheat. During this week I looked further into the science of fermentation in bread. I found that fermentation is an anaerobic biological process that converts sugars and starches into simpler substances. In baking, it causes yeast and bacteria to convert sugars into carbon dioxide, among other things.

During this week, my group and I finalized our project idea of the bread venn diagram. We wrote an abstract together focusing on that bread is the basis of human existence. Not only does it provide us sustenance, but it is also one of the greatest pleasures in life. Starting from just flour, water, and yeast, baking these simple ingredients are able to provide the nutrients we need to survive.

The first day of class during week 5, we had guest speaker Maryam Razi share her project HOX ZODIAC. She shared that she was exploring different options to make a game. Her zodiac wheel consisted of the following: pig, rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, and dog. To play her game she explained that one would spin the wheel to land on the different animals. Although her game was still in prototype, together as a class we brainstormed different ideas for her game.

We learned in depth about plasma and magnetism on Monday with Dr. Walter Gekelman. Previously having toured the plasma lab he had generously allowed us to tour. We learned about the basics of laws like Maxwell's Equations that each had to do with different gravitational pulls.

During Week 3 we learned about a variety of different kinds of topics including Professor Vesna's collaborative lunar new year project with artist and scientists worldwide, a tour of the botanical garden, a weird living organism called SCOBY (a starter for kombucha), and a tour of a machine that creates plasma for research purposes studying atomic bombs.

For the second week we were assigned to make or bring bread. We were given the option to take bread from a dining hall, buy one from a store, or bake. I decided to bake bread because one of my friends had shown me how to make bread during winter break. Interestingly enough, the recipe was fairly simple and I had most of the ingredients already at my disposal but I did end up having to buy yeast and the flour. One of my roommates also brought some fresh rosemary from her garden at home.

This week in class we learned a variety of things including the structure of carbon (a hexagon) found in nature, listened to our breath, explored the manufacture process of what how to make a pencil and an eraser, and lastly viewed with our own eyes a microscope so advanced, that it can create an image of an object measured in microns.