Black Boxes

For most of my career, I asked students to perform a “Black Box” lab activity to kickstart the year. The idea is simple: by making simple manipulations of a small cardboard box, students can draw a theory about the nature of the box’s contents. The goal of the activity is never to “guess” what’s inside but rather to mimic the process of indirect observation to “discover” the secrets of atomic theory. I know it’s a bit of a reach, but having small activities punctuate an otherwise dull unit is fun. I give students clear instructions, including the template for an observation table.

There is a common thread to many students’ approaches to this process, in that they start with gentle movements (“tilted side to side about a horizontal axis”) and move towards more vigorous ones (“we threw the box on the floor – hard”). The sound in the room starts low and rises to loud banging as they approach more aggressively. What accompanies this energy is something altogether different and an aspect of the lab that has taken me some time to get my head around: their need to know the correct answer.

You see, my students have increasingly wanted to know the correct answer (What is in that box, Mr. Quinton?), and as a part of the activity mirroring the nature of the discovery of atomic theory, I have told them they are not allowed to know. We don’t open the boxes at the end, I don’t show pictures of the contents, and I don’t discuss what might be there. It is this part of the activity that has been an exciting challenge. So, a few years back, I told students that if they asked me after graduation, I would say to them, thinking they would forget and the issue would dissolve into the medium as they drifted off to college. Besides, what is a sophomore chemistry class when I am on my way to college?

There is much to appreciate in the tenacity and commitment of those who reach out from beyond graduation to inquire, so I happily honor their requests and keep my word. In recognition of this moment, I will share the contents of the boxes as they existed before the 23-24 school year.

The first box is typical of all the boxes in that it contains a collection of crap that I found in my classroom when I created the boxes a few years ago. Wooden molecule sets? UGH – they were all but worthless and took up cabinet space. Gloves? Corks? Test tube? Yikes, this is random.

Oof! I decided it would be fun to throw in pieces of metal (screws and nuts). We see the appearance of a styrofoam ball and a well plate (also in Box 1). And oh, my! There are some random paper towels inserted just to add to the complexity.

Box 3 has a computer dongle? Yikes! I must have been trying to get rid of that. The rubber ends of the glass droppers? Hmm… We see the appearance of a weigh boat and some popsicle sticks.

This box has wooden laundry pins! Why did I have these in my room? Also, a random pink plastic wrapper appears in this scenario.

Ethernet cable! Paper towels! NH3 molecule! Cork stoppers! Black Box 5 is my favorite so far…

This box has more of the same. I do see a fun metal washer in the mix, though. I love me some cabling and paper and molecule action, though. LOTS OF CABLING!

This box feels as though I wasn’t even trying. This has a giant rubber stopper! It also isn’t full, so shaking would have resulted in much movement.

By the time I arrived at Box 8, things had definitely declined. Plastic trash? Bottle tops? Two styrofoam balls? Paper towels?

Overall, it is a bit cringy how random the contents of the boxes are. On the one hand, it doesn’t matter, as the goal was never to guess the exact items inside, and each box has a different profile of shapes, sounds, and volume. On the other hand, I am not sure what I had hoped to get out of this activity, as they truly are not as different from each other as they could be. Could I have been able to be successful in this activity? What would my results have looked like? Certainly, “high-school Colin” would have thought this was kind of dumb, and I would have half-heartedly gone through the motions. Besides, what does this have to do with atomic theory anyway?

For those students reading, I hope you can finally satisfy your need to know. And I do apologize for the lameness of some of this. I am going to give myself a “3” on this activity, as this is certainly not “4” material.