Australia's Science Forum

Hello, The fastest and best way to make agar plates is to get the nutrient broth and agar from your chemical supplire, in Qld Bayside chemicals have good items. Mix 1.5g of the nutrient broth and 1g agar for every 100ml deionised water. You can make about 12 plates with 300ml total water. Place all ...

Hello Leanne

If the colum will not unsrew, and the fine wire and steel wool has not helped then toss them for new ones.
Even if you can get them unscrewed I find that they crack on next use as the stress on the column weakens it.

Regards
Michelle

Hello, Why are you creating agar plates with detol? :?: A few years ago we had some senior students do a extended experiemnt with looking at the concentration at which dettol inhibits growth. The concentration was very low, a 1/1000 diluation. If you add more than that concentration you wont get any...

Hello, Yes we melt the choclate and then add different lollies to represent different components of the soil, eg cut up red frogs for metals, molteasers for fossels. The students mine the chocloate with tooth picks, butter knifes and if they ask we have little hammers to pounding the rock. Disposal ...

Hello,

When we do earth science and the teachers want artifical ore we make up a version with choclate and lollies. Works as well as the other version and the studnts can eat it after.

Regards
Michelle

Hello, You are lucky to have such a wonderful array of animals, all we have are fish, which the girls keep killing with love. I have to hide the food in my desk or they get fed 6 times a day. Hint for the snake with feeding, warm up the enclosure first with a heat lamp, they are more inclined to eat...

Hello
You can get tapers from any church supply shop.

A good idea for tapers is to encase them in plastic straws as this prevents breakages and warping from hand warmth.

Michelle

Hello,

Check with the workplace health and saftey person in your school because there is a volume and variety limit of flammable liquids after which you need to store in a special cupboard, but I do not know what that limit is for WA.

Regards
Michelle

Hello,

We have only one corrosive cupboard for both acids and bases also.
In our case the bases are all available in solid form, so I store them in a normal cupboard within a PVA catch container. The corossive cupboard we use for the liquid acids.

Regards
Michelle

Hello, I am with ri on this, dispose of the entire container with a disposal company. We had some very old red and white phospherous a few year ago and even putting it in a new botttle under water, old one had broken lid, resulted is flare up. Best policy with old and questionable chemicals is it is...

Hello,

Look into getting glucose strips from chemists. Not TOO expensive, you can even ask for out of date stock which will identify the presence of glucose, but not accurectly the level.

Regards
Michelle

Hello, Working in a private school, to some extent your job description is what ever your department head requests of you. If you are unsure what your position requirement are and do not have a copy, just approach your HOD or business manager and request one. Tell them it is for clarification so tha...

Hello, At my school I am both the Labbie and the workplace health and saftey officer. With chemical storage there is a minimum storage requirement, eg flammables in a flammables cupboard and corrosives in a corrosive cupboard. For general shelving a good option is using laminated pine or even heavy ...

Hi When it comes to shopping I have had to train the teachers to give me plenty of notice as I have limited use of a vechial. Most of the time it is no problem as I get the teacher to tell me at the end of term what chapters they are doing next term so I have an idea what may be needed and can plan ...

For the Forensic science unit at Clayfield we have the girsl do a DNA extractoin so they can see DNA. It also helps the talk about DNA fingerprinting and identification seem more real for the girls. A good contact place for forensic is the Police. We have some oficers help us each year do a crime sc...

Like Sue I do not use chmewatch for my chemical stocktake but have a excel spreadsheet. I find the best way to do the counting is in many smally lots, eg by DG class. This way the interuptions which always occur are not such a problem. For me a week is also normal for the time it takes. For ordering...

I have used the corn flour and water slime a great experiment for open day, for children and adults both. For this one add the colour with the water or you go through too much food colour and have children with stained hands. Another good idea is to have some dry ice, sodium hydroxide solution and u...

I have found the best thing to use is a product called So-safe graffiti remover for painted surfaces.

May need two application but does remove the stain with out damanging the surface of the table.

For the level of microbilogy we undertake in high schools I find the best method is for every 100ml of water add 1g agar pawder, 1.5 g nutrient broth and microwave it in a concile flask with some boiling chips on the bottom, 500ml flask for 300ml volume is best. This makes about 15 plates of small v...

As a laboratory assistant with a honours degree in science I find that school officers (our title in QLD) within science are treated in many cases as glorified cleaners. My pay scale is very low and on top of that according to the business office I am only a teachers aid. Given the amount of paperwo...