Australia's Science Forum

We use Pasco probes with our Macs. We are a one on one laptop school, we have SPARK as the interface up loaded onto all 650 machines, even Yr 8s and 9s can use it. Works really well . Our purchases were done through Ciderhouse.

Has any one sourced the "shower curtain periodic tables" in Australia? We have one and would like 4 more, but the one we have was purchased by a staff member online from America and we can't go down that line (purchasing requirements)

Haines have a number in their catalogue. These might suit your purpose
Diana

Thanks so much Sheryl for the information you have provided. It's nice to have some warning of such a big change. It's also good to know why the change is occuring.
Regards
Diana

I go to Bunnings as well. Too easy, I really don't have time to be acid washing sand.

I use a mix. Small and large white lab trays for most liquids and all solid dangerous goods chemicals. For my large winchester bottles I use small crates (cheap stores) because bunding must be able to store all liquid from all bottles in the container if the bottles were to break. That is a lot of l...

Stationary items come out of the budget here. I've always supplied as necessary. Metre rules, 30cm rules and tape measures (sewing and 50m) are part of our general science supplies. I have worked in a number of schools and it has been the same in all. General stationary items (pens, pencils, markers...

Hi Ian Had this happen to me a couple of weeks ago when I sent it down to the canteen to see if it was as hot as they thought. It was (over 50 C) and the mercury went up over the ble rod. I just flicked it down like you do with the old mercury clinical thermometers. My other life as a student nurse ...

Smiley is on the money :grin: , manganese dioxide and plaster of paris made into pellets is the way to go (really easy to make). Otherwise the fine manganese dioxide powder gets into everything and is really hard to clean :cry2: . You just need to make sure that the teachers get students to recycle ...

Hi Kim
a copy would be great.

diana.hansen@det.wa.edu.au

You are a star

We use both Uni Trays (chemical resistant plastic) and full gloss paintedwooden rectangular ones. These were made by the father of the lab tech before me about 18 years ago. These are going strong. Maybe you could trade with someone in your T&E department (wood work). I will attempt to up load a...

Our large marble samples also come from the off cuts of headstones. Our local undertaker who also is a stonemason kindly donated them a few years ago. It's great as we have raw and worked samples of marble.

Yes marble chips are marble . Like Lynn we recycle ours and I think in thirteen years I have bought one 500g bottle of Marble chips about five years ago to add to my supply and it has just been opened this year and a few chips used. Don't ever throw out your marble chips, wash and label a container ...

Got to :wub: those year 10s and the rest. If you can clean the equipment I would just store it as it is. I have tried to separate Quick Fit in the past and on two occassions ended up with a tray full of very expensive glass shards :cry2: . Best of luck with all the suggestions,I hope that you have b...

About 5 years ago I sorted and labelled by name and (sed, met,ig) all our samples, it took about three weeks solid :crazy: . They range in size from the size of your palm to the size of your head and occupy a set of shelved in one of our store rooms. We have named them all, written on a tiny piece o...

It, you're so clever. It's great when an idea works. I'm always looking for ways to keep equipment clean.
Diana

Hi
We have the same ones as you (I think). we have had some break in the same place (middle). This only happens when students put them on the top of their heads and pull them roughly from there. Safety Glasses do not just break for no reason.
Diana

I'm going for all three days and so is the part timer I work with. I will look out for you both.
Diana

I'm with Lyn some of my tripods date from when this school was built back in the 70's. Any rust is just a bit messy, it doesn't effect the tripod's useability. If it's really bad I use a wire brush or get a student to do it.
Diana

Over here in the west we have to store all our specimens in a 2 - PHENOXYETHANOL mixture (this solution is inert), unless we want to store all of them in a flammables cupboard. One plus of this (after changing all the solutions in all the jars) is that the specimen does not have to be in jar that is...