Diamonds from Air

When lessons take detours from the set curriculum, interesting things can happen. It is suprising to find out how much some of our students know, and what sort of thoughts and opinions they have. The relationship between teacher and student grows and expands in these unscripted moments of interaction. Fostering these relationships is at the core of our business, therefore detours may be one of the most important parts of the journey.

This particular detour was all about diamonds. Even though my student is only eight years old, when we started talking about diamonds he surprised me by saying that they were made out of the same basic element as can be found in pencils, simply stacked up and arranged in a different way. I built on his thoughts by explaining that basic element went by the name of carbon, and it can also be found in the air we breathe.

This surprised him a little, but he really became interested when we began to discuss businesses that take carbon out of the atmosphere and turn it into diamonds. It seems like a magical process. Sometimes learning can be a bit like that too.