Snails - A Tale from the Classroom

(Audio supplement available at the end of this post)

I am a science teacher who has always taught Physical sciences. Well, one year I taught nothing but BIOLOGY.

... everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.
- George Santayana

So I am setting up this lab where the students will be making observations regarding "the characteristics of life". I have eight lab stations set up with various items: flowers, seeds, plastic bag with a live goldfish, lit candle, a beaker with a couple small, live snails covered with a Petri dish. The snails look dried-out from the previous day, so I put a few drops of water in the containers to "wake them up"…

Good, I see the eyes "pop up" as I turn out the classroom lights and leave for the day.

The next morning, I walk in and get ready to start class… the snail beakers are empty… the Petri dish lids are knocked off! What was going on? Was this a snailbreak? Had these mollusks somehow muscled the lids off and ran for the door? When I taught PHYSICS my LABS never woke up and snuck away on me in the night!

Class was going to start in just ten minutes.

I start frantically looking around the room for snails. I find a couple snails curled up on the counter near the beakers. I see a snail trail along the floor… find a snail under the cabinetry. Then there is a little fellow 20 feet away as it climbed DOWN the cabinets, across the floor, UP another set of cabinets and into the next sink!

CRUNCH! I step on a fifth one that was on the floor.

The bell rings... Well, at least I have enough snails for my activity. Just enough. I can survive today, so long as my four snails survive...

As the day progresses I find snails in flower pots and under tables, but I make it through the day with my sanity intact.

Prologue: TWO MONTHS LATER...

After winter break, I enter my room… CRUNCH! A petrified snail was stuck in the middle of the floor as it tried to make a break for it during the week.

The tenacity of nature is ... awe-inspiring. 

Lesson: Be careful of living labs.