Australia's Science Forum

I found out recently that some of the students who have home group in the science lab next to the prep room were coming in and eating ice out of the freezer!!!!!! 8O I had to put a big sign on the freezer door saying something along the lines of "Not for human consumption, do not eat ice from t...

The facebook link is at the bottom of the home page. I had to do it from home though as we have no access here.

Our biology students are doing plant EEI's this term and we will be using some plant hormones. We did this last year and I struggled a bit to work out the best concentrations to use. I tried to use the instructions on the website of the supplier but couldn't work it out. The students will be waterin...

I'm not sure about Anglican but if it is the same as Catholic it comes down to time in the job. You have to work the equivalent of one year full time, which is 1976 hours, to move up a step. Levels depend on the job you do and if you feel it is wrong you can apply for reclassification but steps with...

I heard it on our Qld labbies discussion list a while ago and it has been mentioned again recently. Sounds like it isn't as big a deal as I thought. Using glass stoppers in glass bottles is a definite no no though. I'll keep an eye on the brittleness of my bottles!

I had heard that NaOH solutions should be stored in plastic bottles as over time it reacts with the glass and I have transferred all my NaOH. I hadn't really thought about the other hydroxides though. Should I also transfer the potassium and calcium hydroxide? Are there any other solutions that shou...

Unfortunately, no!

Preproom posted on Facebook that they had had 85 new members overnight from Australia! Good on you guys, lets take over the world!

Maybe the guy who made this should have added a slice of bread and made a spinning helicopter.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/techno ... 1zsqi.html

We do this using baby oil. The glass doesn't completely disappear so it may not be as good as glycerine but easier to get large quantities of. I just pour back into the bottle and save for next time. The other part is to put a glass dropper into the oil and then suck some oil up into it, now you see...

I'm not sure where I found this site from but it is quite good. It is a UK based site for school science depatrments. They do have forums on there but they wouldn't be as relevant as this one, but they also have things like Website of the week and links for practicals and apps etc. There is also a w...

You could have a look at this website. It is just about energy really but on the Science projects page it had some experiments to do.
http://energyquest.ca.gov/index.html

Yes, mix cornflour or starch with cold water then pour in boiling water from kettle to make up to quantity required. It does settle after a while but just needs a shake.

Cornflour?

Ok. Have spoken with chem teacher and she agrees with me and Lada. O.197M. I'm not very good with formulas as I can never remember them so I will go through how I worked it out. 0.02L of 0.05M oxalic acid means you have 0.001 moles of oxalic acid. Every one mole of oxalic acid reacts with 2 moles of...

I got 0.197M but as it was different to everyone else I thought I had done it wrong! I'll check with our Chem teacher as she is pretty good with this stuff.

The balloon one is good. We also put some in a glove and it looked great. If you drop the balloon or glove into water it will expand much quicker and explode. For younger classes it is good to put food colouring into the water and ask what colour the bubbles (gas) will be now. Gets them to think abo...

We have them here. They were already here when I started so couldn't tell you where from but I'm pretty sure Labtek and Westlab sell them. We use NaOH in ours alot (only 0.1M) and they are fine. Easy to clean too.

Try the "Joke of the Day" thread. There are definitely cats on there but may just be the same ones. Other funny stuff too though.

We had a year 12 chemistry student (male) who wanted to pick up the gauze mat but realised it would be too hot (good start!) so was going to use a plastic sandwich bag (that I had used for paddle pop sticks or the like) to protect his hand! Managed to stop him just in time.