Friday, February 16th, 2007, Halifax, NS, 2nd graders shook hands and shared the love of learning about Oxytocin thanks to the team of Emilie Crewe (BFA NSCADU) and Amy Holland (BSc SMU) in our first MLP in the New Year, hurray!!

Expanding and contracting rubber bands, relating stories of the comfort of a hug and the times that their pets had babies, looking at pictures of kittens and puppies suckling as well as watching parts of the classic film “101 Dalmatians” , the students were immersed in thought about how oxytocin performs three key functions: 1) to cause feelings of love from touching, 2) to cause contractions for babies to be born and 3) to cause lactation of milk from the mother.  Considering that oxytocin is shaped like a lasso, formed by a string of amino acid building blocks, the students made oxytocin inspired lasso-shaped bracelets.  Different colored beads represented the different amino acids, as each student constructed their own oxytocin bracelet to illustrate the loop of six amino acids, formed by a disulfide bond (the same kind of bond found in hair and in insulin), off of which three other amino acids dangle.  All raised their oxytocin bracelets with glee loving peptide chemistry on a MLP Friday after Valentine’s day.

Finishing our first MLP presentation in 2007, (8th total!!), team oxytocin was thanked for sharing MLP love in 2nd grade in Halifax.

Team Oxytocin, Emilie Crewe (BFA NSCADU) and Amy Holland (BSc SMU) sharing the love of teaching about oxytocin

Studying the contractions of rubber bands.