Australia's Science Forum

Hmmmmmmm

Sounds like building explosives by stealth. A definite NO seems in order.

Yes we subscribe to both. The students use their Student RiskAssess as part of their EEI's, which also gives them relevant info to talk about in their Process Journals. We use RiskAssess as my timetabling medium, so teachers HAVE to use RA to get a prac. They now even do one, when they only want som...

What about looking at something like the limb reduction in skinks and the legless lizards in Australia. I remember finding a chart once that showed how the body became more elongated as the legs/toes were reduced, and that therefore the gait became more like a slither. Is that what you're looking for?

Rice bubbles

I want to come!!!

Have fun guys.

CSIRO does a lot like the Sheep Blowfly program in Canberra, and the corresponding Screw-Worm fly program in PNG. They create mutations that have adverse survival results - e.g. blind, or wrinkled wings, or infertile offspring etc - and release quantities of these flies into the wild populations to ...

I saw one on a PD day - they're very Primary School. You can take photos etc, but it depends on what you want a USB microscope for. We use our Motic, from AIS, to take photos of leaf cross-sections and leaf surface slide and then count stomata or measure pallisade layers etc using the measurement pr...

Gratnells - love my Gratnells. AND my lovely Gratnell trolleys that go with it.

I recall that Yes, we're not supposed to burn it any more in volcanoes, but no it's not banned and is still OK to use for Seniors.

We just use hydrometers from the brew shop. You can also buy a sugar hydrometer which used to be used specifically for diabetes checks prior to Testape. Somewhere in internet land is a conversion table, coz all our little cherubs - well, the biggish ones really - had to do conversions from their hyd...

Ahh Ocker, if only. But yes, they didn't irradiate my sense of humour, thankfully.

Well carbon is safest. Although I wouldn't use a transformer with Yr 7's. We use a simple battery circuit, with alligators, a mes (little light globe stand bizzo) and carbon electrodes. There are fairly simple conductivity rigs out there, using wire probes, that can work in a test tube, for example....

Speaking of cost...beware the Pearson's experiments. They are often bucket chemistry! :-( You will see things like "give every child four 250 mL beakers, 100mL of oil" etc, for a prac that can (and was) done very adequately in 25mm test tubes. Some of their pracs also either transmit very ...

I'm with Lyn - it's heaven. The timing recording is SO useful, for all the reason she listed. And at least it does challenge the teachers to consider the risks. Interesting is when the PE/Science teachers, or Maths/Science teachers (i.e. not specifically Chemistry trained teachers) put in a prac req...

Love how your mind works, and jealous that you got to say it first!

I would have said an old centripedal force rig, except, as was pointed out, that they are clearly different types of wires. I ask one of my teachers here.

I'm with linotas - hotplates

Buy the "Dame Edna" glasses from ProfBunsen (less than $2 each) then get all the kids to wear them, turn off the lights and do it as a demo! Take notes between flames, and let them work out the unknowns. Uses less chemicals, but still lots of engagement owing to the fun glasses.

Lucky you! Where are the photos? The good ones I mean, not the ones of you feeling sick!

One of my teachers once made acetylene when trying to clean up some crucibles that had MgO in them. Not sure how he did it, but I was glad we were using 20mL crucibles and not 500mL beakers!

Ditto. Love my Verniers. Nice customer support (at least up here in Qld) from Scientrific too.