Despite Hurricane Harvey’s disruption at the beginning of the semester, the Natural Sciences Council was finally able to kick off Natural Sciences Week on Monday.

The week was postponed from the beginning of the year out of respect for students affected by Harvey. The first event, Gone to Natural Sciences, was finally held Monday night in front of the Tower and hosted 46 different organizations.

Karan Kathuria, Natural Sciences council president, said the whole week is a celebration of everything the college has to offer.

Monday’s event was meant to create a sense of community for students in the College of Natural Sciences and help them feel like more than a number, said Kathuria, a biochemistry senior.

“This event is about introducing the new class to the college,” Kathuria said. “We wanted to have a full opening. We really love the fact that these freshmen are here, and we just want to celebrate them coming to our college.”

The event also featured a DJ, petting zoo and two miniature horses, Fiona and Emily. Physics Circus, an organization composed of graduate students from the college, set up and performed the highlights of some of their experiments.

The UT student chapter of the American Chemical Society had students lining up the entire event to get ice cream frozen right in front of them. The organization used liquid nitrogen to freeze the milk and sugar, then served the ice cream.

Kelly Walsh, the society’s outreach chair, said they used Monday’s event to show people that science can be fun.

“Everybody loves ice cream, and sometimes people claim that they don’t love chemistry, but that’s just because they don’t realize how cool chemistry can be,” chemistry senior Walsh said.

Raaj Pyada, fundraising chair for the organization, said this week is a way to get their organization’s name out to the students.

“A really big chunk of our membership comes from freshmen, and unfortunately, due to Harvey, we were not able to get to some of the freshmen early in the year,” biochemistry sophomore Pyada said. “This week is about attracting some more members. It’s always nice to see new faces in the organization.”

After a brief speech, David Vanden Bout, associate dean for undergraduate education for the college, and Mike Raney, assistant dean for the College of Natural Sciences, threw Texas Science shirts into the crowd to the tune of “Back in Black” by AC/DC.