The mysterious black spot in my oven

I was warming lunch one day when my wife came in – What are your burning? she asked. I gave here an angry face, what do you mean?

Are you burning plastic? she asked.

We opened the oven and found a burning pool of an unidentified material. We shouted “What is that?” and “where did it come from?” simultanusly. “It smells like plastic” my wife said.

I decided to ask a student who works in a laboratory to identify it.

A few days later I received his analysis in an email.

“Humm” I thought, “how did a poly- whatchamacallit thing get into my oven?”. Here is my email reply:

He replied: 

I love it when reality brings such lessons my way. When this happens, these are the most enjoyable and useful lessons; not just to the students but also to me.

Here are some ideas I would do with this (number 4 is best!):

1. Ask the students to explain some of the technology or related science.
2. Imagine this email exchange was with an important customer. Rewrite the mails.
3. Grammar – ask the students to find mistakes and correct them.
4. Depending on the position of the student – write a report, suggest counter measures etc.

I concluded that it indeed was a black Lego figure.