In this hour, stories of starting fresh. Unexpected opportunities, budding relationships, your next home, and a new take. This episode is hosted by Moth Executive Producer, Sarah Austin Jenness. The Moth Radio is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Student Naushin Khan has never had a "good relationship" with chemistry. Kristin Lawlor feels like the only single girl in New York. Mariam Bazeed and their family relocate to Egypt during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Law professor Dave Moran tries his hand at modelling. Aleyne Larner meets a man 20 years her senior. Podcast # 712 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Full Episode
This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin Janess. In this episode, lifelong learning and the pursuit of the unfamiliar. Everything novel and new. We start in Central Park with an unlikely catalyst for change. Pond scum, also known as algal blooms. Notion Kahn shared this story with us as part of a moth education showcase when she was a high school student in New York City.
Here's Notion live at the Moth.
Raise your hand if you ever hated your high school science class. Especially chemistry. Yeah. When I was in 10th grade, I also hated my chemistry class. Sitting in the classroom, I used to think, why do I have to learn all these complex chemistry words like oxidation, reduction, spectro something, something. We don't see those words in our environment. There is no connection. We don't use them.
They're pointless. When I turned into 11th grade, I had to take that subject test for chemistry. I was so frustrated because I never had a good relationship with chemistry. But I still had to take it. Sitting in the testing center for three hours, I was so pissed. I don't even remember what the test was about as it just bubbled random answers.
So my sister came to the testing center to pick me up. And when she saw me very gloomy, she decided to take me to the Central Park to give me some therapy to forget the test. When I went to the park, she handed me a camera to take pictures. So I was running around in the park holding a camera, and I saw a lake full of green water. I was like, wow, green water.
I did not know there was green water before. When I saw the water, I wanted to touch it. Then my sister shouted, hey, stupid, do you not see the sign beside the lake that says dangerous? All go blooms. Please don't contact with the water. I was like, wow, this glowing, beautiful water could be that dangerous. It even can give me skin disease. That's unbelievable.
And a few days later, I was accepted to an internship. And the internship was called Sustainable Energy. And I thought I would be learning about planting trees and how to save energy. So I'm excited, and I went to the first day of the internship, and I was shocked. It's all chemistry. I was thinking, oh God, I did not sign up for this.
And my professor gave us an assignment to conduct an experiment and research that would somehow benefit the environment using all chemistry. But because we have to do it, I remembered my day at the Central Park where the water was all dangerous because of harmful algal blooms.
So my team and I decided to conduct some research by collecting those water to see if we can somehow make that water into something that would be beneficial for the environment. After conducting six weeks of research, I realized the words that I used to hate in my chemistry class, like specto something something, now became my favorite word. Because it is spectrophotonometry that
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