This is not your typical science experiment.
An unnamed teacher at an unnamed school wanted her fifth-grade students to understand the meaning of a viral message. So she posted a photograph to a teacher's resource Facebook page that showed her holding a handwritten sign.
The message: "I'm talking to my 5th grade students about Internet safety and how quickly a photo can be seen by lots of people. If you are reading this, please click "like." Thanks!"
The sign also featured a smiley face and the date, 11/18/13.
Over the past ten days, the image has circulated just as the teacher might have hoped – as well transforming in ways she probably did not anticipate.
Combined with a repost on a Facebook social club called Society's Choice, the teacher's original post has been liked over 912,000 times. That's an impressive number by any measure and the thousands of comments have been unanimously supportive of both the teacher and her idea.
But it was only when the image got posted on Reddit that things started to get interesting.
As its name suggests, a Reddit sub-group called r/photoshopbattles began transforming the image, further underscoring the risk of posting something online while providing some value-added humor.
In several cases, the message itself was replaced with other calls-to-action such as "Looking for singles in Chicago? Check me out at www.sexyteacher.xxx" and "I'm talking to you about how students aren't people and can be seen as pets." Many remembered to include the smiley face.
Other examples swapped the teacher for famous figures and non-humans. Beyonce appears making caught in an unflattering facial expression – a nod to the incident back in February when the star's publicist requested that a photo be removed from a Buzzfeed article.
You can follow a thorough chronology of the morphing message here.
If this confirms that some people have too much time on their hands – the Inception-style photo would have required some effort – it also allowed people beyond the teacher's classroom to understand the very real implications of sharing in the age of social media. We call the phenomenon "viral" for a reason.
There is no word yet from the anonymous, bespectacled teacher or how her class has reacted. Perhaps there will be a part two to this exercise.
But for now, it remains a teachable moment for all of us.
Amy Verner