For a guest lecture last Thursday, the guest, Julie Haack, came and talked about chemistry and biochemistry and how they are used when creating products.  As her example, she brought in three very different types of shoes.  One were basketball shoes (all different sizes and styles), second were slippers (term used to call “flip-flops” from where I am from), and the last were hospital booties (the ones that go around one’s own shoe).  Each of these items were made differently, but all with the same substance.  Plastic.  Each material had just been modified or changed in its chemistry in order to fit a certain need that the footwear had to satisfy.

We did a little exercise after that.  We were given different types of materials to compare along with a chart of where these materials landed on.  We had to order them from least to greatest based on durability.  After we placed them, we compared answers.  Haack then told us to look at the statistics of the materials on the back, and change the order if we needed to.  The results really surprised me.  The material I thought was the weakest out of the bunch actually turned out to be the most durable.  That material was polypropylene.  I did not think of it as durable because I based my assumption off of personal experience, so I was really amazed at how much stronger it was compared to the others.

This chemistry and biochemistry is a little hard to incorporate with my project since I am not looking into that field of science.  However, the general idea of what is made of what is something I could probably take from it.  I could go into, since I am focusing on human anatomy, how certain muscles or bones are made or what makes their structure so unique.  It would be interesting to add it in.

Now that I know how durable certain materials are, I am probably going to look at certain clothing or other types of products in a different way.  I would see which ones would last me the longest along with which ones are more energy efficient or use up less resources.  It is a bit confusing and tedious, but I think it would be a really interactive way to get more into the science of something so simple.