Chemistry is everything; our life is continuously surrounded by it. To illustrate this idea, I surrounded the amusement park that I drew by a fence that is inspired from the molecular structure of artificial sweeteners; something I personally use on a daily basis. Also, just like an amusement park is fun, I primarily represented the big ideas in chemistry that I enjoyed the most learning about. My very favorite and most amazing one is about molecular shapes. Somehow, all those bent, t-shaped, and all other shapes made me think of rides we find in an amusement park, which is what two of the rides I drew represent. One of them is the electron geometry of a bent molecule, were the two orbital containing each electron pair spin and we can imagine that the people are the electrons spinning around, enjoying the ride. The second ride suggests a square planar molecular shape, where the person sits on a molecule and enjoys the ride. Another way this big idea is represented in my drawing is through the two kids holding balloons and that I positioned specifically between those two rides and those balloons were inspired from the p orbital (only z and x axis orbital were drawn here). Another idea that is present in my drawing is that there are barriers to reactions. To show this, I drew a ride that is inspired from the energy activation curve of a reaction, where the small wagon illustrates the idea of molecules needing enough energy to overcome a barrier and react.

A third idea present in my drawing is entropy, which I found I can represent through the crowd we find in an amusement park because a crowded place inspires disorder. I also drew the crowd in a shape of protein, because metabolizing food and turning it into amino acids is part of this big idea. Therefore, the colors are significant in this representation, as each color represents an amino acid.

Finally, and most importantly, is the idea that matter is atomic. It is amazing how our eyes can't even suspect that everything we see is made out of extremely small things called atoms. This is the idea I was trying to communicate by drawing the words "Chem Land" with small black dots. When seen from far, it seems as if it was all colored in black. However, when a closer look is taken, we can actually see the small dots, which portray the reality of matter. Furthermore, I drew the amusement park in a 3D shape to symbolize the reality of an atom: its 3D shape. I have always been taught to draw an atom in an oversimplified manner using the Lewis Structure, which suggests that an atom is 2D. It is only now, after learning more about atomic orbital, that I came to realize the complexity of an atom's shape.

In conclusion, my art work mainly represents four big ideas in chemistry that revolve around my topic, artificial sweeteners. Indeed, the taste of those sweeteners is sweet because they have a molecular shape that fit into the receptor pocket that usually binds sucrose1. Also, in order to taste, the active site of a protein and a particular molecule is important to consider1, and this touches on entropy as I represented this idea by drawing a protein. Also, since we want this reaction to take place (metabolizing aspartame for instance), it has to overcome a barrier, and this relates to one of the ideas I illustrated. And of course, added to that is the fact that everything is made out of atoms and we are nothing but that!