Cleaning up the lesson plan

Deirdre Newman

Wearing protective goggles and white lab coats, juniors in Matt

Schutz’s chemistry class at Newport Harbor High School stood watch

over their combustible concoctions.

Some students mixed water and lye as they heated them up. Others

mixed various oils over the burner. The goal? To combine the two

mixtures to make soap.

The experiment conducted during the last week of school before

winter break was a culmination of everything the students had learned

up to that point, Schutz said.

Students said the trickiest part was heating the liquids to their

threshold without letting them get too hot.

“It’s fun and confusing, but with all the different ingredients

mixed together, you have to worry about the temperature,” Brittany

Early, 16, said. “It’s something different for a change.”

Meaghan James and Kelly Boler had to redo their lye mixture

because it began hardening during the cooling process.

“We’re learning what not to do,” Boler joked.

While it took a few tries for some, many students said they

relished the stress-free environment of trial and error.

“I think it’s helped us learn a lot,” Adam Schlesinger said. “Mr.

Schutz is a good teacher. He lets us be experimental and make

mistakes.”

Schutz said the classes usually have about a 75% success rate with

making the soap. Those that don’t had to make it at home over winter

break “so they can mess up their own house,” Schutz said.

After winter break, the students worked on packaging and

advertising their soapy products for a mock trade show.

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot

education writer Deirdre Newman visits a campus in the Newport-Mesa

area and writes about her experience.