Nothing could have prepared me for the moldy classroom waiting for me at school on Thursday, Sept. 7. I knew never to expect the expected at school but this was different.

It was a typical morning; I woke up extremely early (5:00 a.m.), washed my face, and got ready for school. Had my usual breakfast: a breakfast sandwich and a coffee. It would be a good day because there was no traffic on the way there. Sat at my usual table with my friends at school. “Hey, did you finish watching the movie I told you to watch?” When the bell rang, we then walked over to my first block, pre-calculus.

We started a new lesson and had free time to work on the homework and practice problems on the lesson we learned in class. While I was sitting in that class, I was also able to catch up on other classes and talk with my friends. “Hey, Patty, what class are you going to
now?” “I’m going to Environmental.”

“Oh my God, what is that smell?!? It smells horrible,” somebody said behind me. Then I smelled the foul stench, and realized what it was. Over the past few classes, we have been
growing lima bean plants in Ziplocs.

We planted them on Friday, Sept. 1, the week before, and had to measure the plants and take pictures. The following class, Tuesday, we smelled a subtle odor that really didn’t bother us.

“It smells so weird, like a mix between dirt and dirty clothes.” “It’ll be gone by next class, right?” One of my friends asked me, “I think so, why shouldn’t it?” Oh, how wrong I was.

Thursday came, and we were hit with a horrible stench as we walked in. There were easily 500 Ziploc bags with 4 lima bean plants in each pack, so the odor emanated from all of them. In those bags, mold had been growing, and the smell seeped out of the bags over time. The smell was so bad even flies were circling the source— the bags.

When the sub walked in, she immediately walked back out and then came in and said, “We are not having class in here, everybody get your stuff we are going to another classroom.”

My classmates and I dreaded having to go back into the room to get the pictures of the plants for our analysis, then we all got the email that would solve all of our problems.

“Sorry ladies for the stinky classroom, go ahead and throw out the plants,” said our teacher Ms. Bischoff.

Though we were sad to see our hard work get thrown out, we were even more happy to finally be able to breathe in that classroom. Now, we joke about our reactions when we came to school that day.

“Can you believe we had to put perfume on our sleeves and smell that all class?” But we learned something new that day, too. We all learned that each school day is an interesting adventure.