Ada's Exhibition: Snakes, Evil and Good

I’m Karenna, and I will be writing about Ada’s Exhibition.

The topic of Ada’s Exhibition was Snakes in Science and Literature, and the exhibition started by having the presentation content handed out before hand, which I found very useful, as you could follow along even if the slide changed and it was useful during the activity, where we debated whether snakes were good or evil. Her project was researching different myths and facts about snakes, as well as stories told about them from different cultures. Ada brought in her pet snake, Charlie, who is a corn snake, and quite adorable.

Ada and Charlie.

The first thing the presentation showed was the order of how things would be going for the exhibition, and it moved on to how people view snakes, as well as why people are so afraid of them. After that, Ada told us some different myths about snakes, including a Greek myth, an Egyptian, and some others. At the end of the presentation there was a slide talking about the characteristics of a corn snake, like that their teeth are curved backwards so prey can’t escape (corn snakes kill their prey by squeezing them to death, and by swallowing them.) Corn snakes are also non-venomous, and are named for the pattern on their stomachs.

The activity consisted of a debate between the two different sides of the room, one half argued that snakes were evil, the other half that snakes are good (I was on the evil side….. our main argument was that you had to wash your hands before petting them.) We argued points such as, Apophis tried to swallow the sun, and the cobras tried to murder a helpless boy in Rikki Tikki Tavi, and the other side argued that snakes are symbols of healing, as well as being intelligent.

Overall the exhibition was informative and I enjoyed it very much. The debate was a great way of talking about what we had learned, and having Charlie there was a nice touch.