“Mr. Gallo? I thought we were going to be working on our engines,” a nerdy little freshman asked, his nose wrinkled at the empty glass vials and various labeled containers on their workspaces.

“We’re going to be doing a little chemistry experiment today,” Michael responded, sifting through the graded tests he was about to hand back. They had done decently well, which made his job easier. When they got answers wrong it just meant he would have to do more work.

“Did you even go to college for chemistry? I thought you were supposed to teach mechanics and en-“

“Yeah, well,” Michael cut him off, giving the kid a look of ‘why the hell do you care??’ before focusing back on the papers. “We’re going to change things up a bit today. Besides, you should know that sciences aren’t limited to their basic function. We’ll be combing mechanics and chemistry for this.”

There were a few mumbled comments through the classroom, some of the boys appearing excited to entertain the idea, but a few seemed as though they’d rather get back to planning out their machines and robots.

“How is weather forecasted?” Michael asked, slowly walking around the room, handing out the tests.

“Weather balloons!” one boy replied, and Michael gave a little shrug.

“Weather balloons collect information like… temperature, humidity… pressure in the atmosphere… wind speed. But how do we combine that information to say ‘Hey, bring an umbrella to school tomorrow’?”

“Powerful computers that use programmed models,” one kid answered.

“Isn’t this Earth science??” the first kid whined, sliding back in his seat.

“What did I say about science overlapping?” Michael frowned, gently bopping the kid on the head with the rest of the papers in his hand after handing him back his test. “Yes, highly advanced computers are used, but it’s a little more complicated than just… turning on a computer. Data has to be collected… You said weather balloons, so… what else is used to predict weather?”

“A weather c**k!” someone else called out, receiving a few immature giggles from the other freshmen.

“Wind vane, used to tell wind direction,” Michael said with an eye roll, moving to the board to put up bullets. Weather balloon was first, then the wind vane. “What about humidity?” he asked.

“Hygro…meters?”

“Good. Wind speed? And weather balloon was already used.”

“Anemometers! Cash Cab question.”

“Yes, Anemometers. Thermometers for temperature, rain gauges measure liquid precipitation, and snow gauges… well, snow,” Michael said, adding the words to the list. “Barometers measure air pressure, and inside the weather balloons are radiosondes, which collects the data of… basically everything. But scientists had to know how to find each individual piece of information before combining it all together.”

Michael turned to the class after he finished writing, picking up another piece of paper with instructions to write on the board. “Today we’re going to be making a weather forecasting device, invented in the mid-eighteen hundreds by Admiral Robert Fitzroy. I know, shocking isn’t it? Someone stepping outside of their carefully defined profession,” he snarked, mostly to himself, although he got a couple chuckles here and there, and a grumble from the boy who had been complaining.

FitzRoy’s storm barometers was written in a clean area of the board, and underneath he wrote aka, a storm glass.

“On your table, you’ll find distilled water, ethanol, potassium nitrate, ammonium chloride, and camphor… which is found in the wood of the camphor laurel, an evergreen tree in Asia. There’s also about twenty percent camphor in dried rosemary leaves. Wait for my instruction before mixing anything,” he instructed, glancing over his shoulder to make sure none of the boys had started without him.

“Admiral Robert FitzRoy carefully documented how his storm glass would predict weather during his voyage with Charles Darwin on the HMS Beagle,” he said, having no shame in adding random bits of naval history or information into his lessons.

“According to FitzRoy, if the liquid is clear, the weather is clear and bright. If it’s cloudy, the weather will be cloudy, with maybe some rain. Small dots mean it’ll be humid or foggy. A cloudy glass with small stars indicates thunderstorms. Small stars on a sunny day mean snow is coming. Large flakes throughout the liquid means it’ll be overcast in warm weather, and snow in winter. Crystals at the bottom indicates frost, and if there’s thread near the top, the weather will be windy.”

Michael shut the cap on the marker as he turned back to the class. “After you make your storm glass, your assignment will be to check it each morning for the rest of the month. We’ll record what the storm glasses predict, and then what the weather channel predicts. Relax, we’ll just use a few minutes each day. We’ll get back to building machines,” he added, rolling his eyes as he got a groan from a few.

“Okay, everyone get a vial,” he said with a wave of his hand, figuring getting them started would help to placate some of their whininess.

Under his desk, in an empty mug, sat a vial he’d already prepared for that very day. Throughout the liquid floated large flakes.