Australia's Science Forum

Last tuesday I had to console and reassure a year 10 girl that the world wasn't going to end yesterday due to it being "swallowed by a black hole"

She had been told about this generater by another student and was genuinely concerned the world was going to end!

Wendy

I have been asked to make up a sodium iodate solution for senior chemistry to measure the dissolved oxygen in water. The recipe calls for 50 gm of NaOH and 15 gms sodium Iodate in 100 mls water which I figured was 12M solution of NaOH. This sounds REALLY strong and I was wondering if anyone could te...

I can't help but wonder whether these upgrades will be victims of the shake up in the NSW Government over the weekend. Our paper is full of speculations as whether the planned Hospital and water supply upgrades that had been promised for Tamworth will go ahead and I wondered if the school labs could...

Year 7 185 students 7 classes Year 8 180 students 7 classes Year 9 207 students 8 classes Year 10 224 students 8 classes Year 11 Physics 2 classes 35 students Chemistry 2 classes 38 students Biology 2 classes 45 students Earth and Environmental Science 1 class 18 students Year 12 Physics 2 classes 2...

Ceramic sinks also disintergrate if you put a coke bottle full of dry ice (with it's lid on) into it!!!! 8O That was the Deputy Principal several years ago! He also used to make metho rockets! But thats not what I sat down to write EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS! We have just had the media (Newspaper and TV)...

Thanks for the photos Noona, It's good to see what the new labs are going to look like. One teacher ( they are never satisfied) asked did I have a picture of the dry teaching areas as they are comcerned about fittinfg 30 kids in the area. The thing I noted was there was storage areas under each/most...

We have 1117 students. 7 labs and 9 teachers. There is just me!! :-( As this is a department school I work 6hr 15 minutes /day and have all holidays off. When I started 9 years ago Science had 1 full time assistant and 1 part time 4 days a week. Over the time this has been whittled down ( whilst the...

Hi Noona, Just a thought, I had trouble uploading the pics of the copper ovens initially because the files were too big. 2.4 MB so I reduced them in Photoshop (image size and reduced the pixels to 600 width) this reduced the size of the file to 60.48 KB and then I had no trouble uploading the pictur...

Hi Noona, I would love to have some pictures of your new labs and prep rooms. Especially as, from what I understand, Oxley High is built to the same design as Greystanes (we opened in 1968, we are square blocks around an open courtyard.) One thing our teachers are concerned about is that whilst one ...

Thanks Lyn for identifying my wonderful piece of equipment. I located the funnel to go on top of it and a tap for the side so it has been returned to it's former glory. I tried at school today to attatch a photo of it but failed. I now have another piece that we dont know what it was used for. We ha...

Started attacking the Chemical Store Cupboards in earnest today clearing old stuff out to make way for storage whilst we are having our classrooms done. I have found numerous and interesting stuff. Notably 75 Retort stand bases, no rods, just bases!!!!!!!! Obviously over the last 30 odd years at lea...

I've started clearing old "stuff" from the Chemical Store room in preparation for our renovations. We have 3 of these beautiful pieces of equipment. They just yell SCIENCE but what are they and what wew they used for? Our chemistry teacher (20 years experience) has no idea what they would ...

I hate to think!!!!!!!!!! 8O Also what do I do with all the equipment that is in 2 labs whilst they are being done! Beakers, power packs test tube racks etc. I also will have to totally clear my prep room andwhere all that stuff is to go I don't know. It is however a perfact opportunity to get rid o...

I am some what excited. \:D/ Oxley High is one of the schools that are to have new labs under this initiave. The word from the 4 official people that were here this morning that we will get probably 6 possible all 7 of our labs totally gutted and reburbished. I aslo get a total gutting and refurbish...

Here we use cornflour which was bought in a bulk 25kg bag, no one has complained. I usually make it as a boiled solution for food testing, osmosis etc.

Wendy

We're off to Port Macquarie also but only overnight to visit an ill mother-in-law. Though still should have time to maybe catch sight of a whale from shore. We did this time last year! Then it's home and hopefully to my sewing machine. I'm working on a wall Quilt inspired by our recent school excurs...

Hi Jazz,

I found your risk assessment sheet on Barium Chloride very interesting. Do you have a sheet like that on all the chemicals that you have?

Wendy

I can tell you the difference between them, but not which you should use. Our recipe uses peptones which from their definitions seems the logical choice. Pepsin: a digestive enzyme produced in the stomach that converts proteins into peptones ; it only acts in a acid medium. Peptones: Organic substan...

There are occasoinal benifits from working in the country. Our Liquid nitrogen come free by way one of our teachers playing tennis each week with a vet that does A.I! When we need it, he just askes his mate.

Wendy

This morning our head teacher told me the P & C had asked for a wish list from each faculty for concideration to purchase. One suggestions from the teachers was for more Senior Microscopes ( we have about 16 of these already), whilst other suggested a Digital Microscope/microscopes as they are s...