Australia's Science Forum

We have also used parrafin wax and drawing pins. But the teacher just asked me to buy conductivity rings, which she said are easier (used at a previous school).

Sodium Hydroxide about 1M. Fill up test tubes (stand in groups in a beaker) with NaOH and leave a couple of days. Sulphur will come out in sheets. Might have to help along a bit with a shove from a strong piece of wire (old deflagrating spoons good for this). I might have used stronger NaOH but 1M p...

Our peptone is a buff yellow, but reasonable hard, but has always been like it. It smells like nutrient agar, so I suspect that the correct ingredient is peptone. I have always used nutrient agar to make agar plates for over 15 years. They always work and are dead easy to make, and wouldn't bother m...

Maybe try stronger NaOH - 1M?

1 tablet (or 1/4 teaspoon) to 500ml milk is the recipe

It's cause they don't know. I agree that you would expect that they should know - I mean the teachers and the text book writers. I got asked for the same thing a week or so back and made them settle for saturated. But wasted heaps of chemical - oh well, worse could happen I suppose.

We've used spray bottles, pop sticks and wire loops dipped in the powder. The best and easiest is to soak pop sticks in distilled water overnight. Then, whilst wet, dip in the powders and into the bunsen. This way the sticks don't burn. This came about by mistake. The teacher thought I could read he...

According to CSIS red lead isn't banned, but listed for use with years 11, and 12. It goes on to say, DO NOT HEAT ON A CHARCOAL BLOCK
I guess that is pretty clear, so I will now dispose of all the blowpipes. That is all they were ever used for. Another lot of useless equipment.

The burner with the 2cm grid of fine holes is a meker burner. Don't let it out of your sight, you won't get it back! Great for melting glass. Use a batswing bunsen for bending glass, as it heats a 4 or 5 cm length of tubing evenly with rotation, making lovely even bends.

Hi Lizzie I use http://www.audacity.sourceforge.net to record my records - LP's - on my computer thence to my iPod. It shows music as a wave file. Hadn't thought about using it instead of a CRO but I can see now how you could. Plug a microphone into the computer instead of the stereo player. (I even...

Hi Lizzie There is a site on the intranet https://detwww.det.nsw.edu.au/assetmanagement/chemicals/updates.htm, that has updates, but not too many of them sadly. We have an interesting situation here, where the csis package has not been implemented fully, (all staff only receiving the first part of t...

Dear Bev, About a year ago, a lot of us in the North West, were trying to put our stocktake on Chemgold, but were told that the dept had to issue individual codes to each school and that it would take a while. Well I gave up waiting, but would still like to use their manifest. Do you know if you hav...

I'm sure you're correct. Do you think that the Cl was written close together so it looked like O?

Like Julie, we have a board with days of the week and divided into periods, for them to put up their completed order forms. I insist that orders for the next day are on the board by 9am, to give me time to get the stuff or negotiate with the teacher concerned for an alternative. Failing that they ha...

Use Tread-n-'em, , Sorry I couldn't help myself

We have always used homebrand matches. They used to be 39c for 10 boxes and are now probably about 49c. So at about 5c per box, why would you refill or sweat over them. It is the teachers problem to get the kids to do the right thing. A lot more money gets wasted with broken glassware and thermomete...

We can't use cheek cells in NSW. But they have just done DNA Extraction from strawberries for Year 10, and this works well, and didn't cost too much even though the strawberries were $5 a punnet.

We have had the Easysense for a long time but they seem difficult to use for some, and we have had internal battery problems. We also have the Pasco Xplorer (for a number of years) with various probes, and it always used by everyone, and is much preferred. Very simple and reliable (2 AA batteries). ...

We have to work till the Friday 21st. Then on Sat 22nd me, husband and daughter from Tamworth, drive to Newcastle to fly to Melbourne to have Xmas and New Year with our son and daughter-in-law. Could be tricky taking all the presents on the plane with us. And all the cooking will be left to me :? mo...

I've used methylated spirits a couple of times when a bit light on in supplies of ethanol. Worked just fine and a lot cheaper.