Australia's Science Forum

Having looked at the RiskAssess labels i have spent some time on Chemwatch making my own. I trust Philip and RiskAssess but i worry that if i use his labels rather than Chemwatch that i wont be compliant. But i liked the fact that his were fairly simple. I read his notes on sizes of GHS icons etc. a...

Hi Kathryn When in doubt, refer to the manufacturer's safety data sheet, not the Chemwatch produced one. The legislation requires us to have, and use, a copy of the manufacturer's SDS, not one from a third party. If the manufacturer no longer exists, you can substitute with a similar product from a...

Hi We have recently purchased one of the vacuum type cloud chambers and i am struggling to get it to do anything. Because it isn't doing anything it is hard to tell what is wrong. We have an alpha point source which i have attached to the pin that goes into the side. I have tried both ethyl alcohol ...

Would you be able to give us the specifics of what you for the Tollen's one? Are they small conicals, and do you need to swirl the solution around or does it work its way up the glass?

Are you in a union? It may be worth speaking to them as it should apply to all science teachers, groundsmen, manual arts teachers and aides too. They may have come across it before.

http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pix ... ystem.html

A scale model of the solar system.

To go with the milk kaleidoscope you can turn it into bread clip boats. Use the plastic clip off a loaf of bread, float it on the milk. Put a drop of food colouring into the hole and then a drop of detergent. The "boat" then whizzes around the plate. Do use full cream though, lite and skim...

I do what Graham does with the dropping bottle trays. The cube you get is close to the 3 x 3 and then i just give out more cubes and the students cut them them selves to get the smaller ones. I give out Stanley knives to cut with and white tiles to cut on. If you have a fairly firm agar it works wel...

Effervescent rainbow is cool. http://www.rsc.org/images/An_effervescent_universal_indicator_tcm18-194228.pdf Not sure if the URL will work as it doesnt always. It is basically a burette, HCl and NaOH and universal indicator but you have to put them in in the right order. Google Effervescent rainbow,...

Thanks, I did do a search and found some stuff about using magnets for mercury ones but managed to miss this thread!

Thanks everyone. I'll give it a go when i have some quiet time!

I have a few red alcohol thermometers that have got gaps in the red line. I've tried shaking them like my mum used to do with thermometers when we were kids and that didn't work. I've tried heating them but the whole thing moves up so it doesn't get rid of the gaps. Is there a way of getting rid of ...

Oh, thanks for that. We started it on Monday so I just gave them disposable plastic bowls with seed raising mix in. But the beakers is great because you would be able to see them as soon as they started to sprout. I'll remember that for next year.

I used to have my acids in cabinet that was a proper corrosive cabinet but not vented. It was horrible having to open it as you would get a face full of fumes every time. So I would agree, don't put acids in a cabinet unless it is vented or the only alternative is you sitting in the same room as the...

Over the past couple of years our genetic barley experiment hasn’t gone well. :-( The seeds have gone mouldy or not grown at all. Out of 12 seeds we often only get about 4 to grow. I tried different techniques (lid off, lid on, soak seeds before planting) but didn’t seem to make much d...

I do my manifest in Chemwatch but find the information much easier to manipulate in excel. So I just export it to Excel and then I can put things in different orders and use the SDS date to check my SDS folders. Also, I took from the whole "household" thing that you only don't put it in if...

0.1M BaCl with 0.5M NaOH.

Should barium chloride form a precipitate with sodium hydroxide? The prac we have says it shouldn't but ours is and I just googled it and it says that Barium hydroxide is slightly insoluble.

Yeah, I spoke to someone from Southern Biological. I think maybe I shook to much so the oil couldn't separate properly. I did another one and was more careful and that seemed to work a bit better. Its not a great test though for anything that doesn't form two layers. We were hoping to do a range of ...