#1 Science Forum For Lab Technicians

Autoclaves would come under pressure vessels requiring inspection as defined in Australian Standard 3788. Whether a domestic pressure cooker used in a laboratory setting would fall under this Standard too I'm not 100% sure.

Would be great if standards that needed to be adhered to were freely ...

We have an autoclave and have a guy come in annually to perform a proper service and inspection with all his gadgets. He's the expert at it and has shown me some neat tricks to troubleshoot it (including how to clean it if we have an accidental boilover and agar covers the water sensor so we don't ...

Getting in early cause we know we'll all likely be way too swamped on May 12 to actually remember to celebrate

And they fun part was washing the cutting boards last night after last period . The goop wouldn't wash off easily so I tried squirting it off and ended up splashing goopy water all over myself :yuck:

Enjoyed my shower when I got home . :thumbup:


Gross :yuck:

We cover our boards with ...

Our main Human Bio teacher reckons brains are rubbish for dissection anyway cause they just collapse and often can't see much.

WA has similar issues with brain supply. Local abattoirs don't have any "head splitters" apparently. Luckily I found a local butcher that can get them in. I think they may ...

A few things off the top of my head:

Correct storage/segregation. If you have dangerous goods cabinets, ensure only dangerous goods of the correct class are stored in that cabinet. The one I've seen trip up other areas in the school is Class 2 Flammable Gas (e.g. aerosol cans) getting chucked in ...

I know it's recommended for us to avoid storing things designated as explosive DGs (e.g. rocket engines). If possible, buy the bare minimum you can and try to use them up.

But if you did have to store them, I would store them in a cool, dry place away from ignition sources as per the storage ...

Hi Pen,

I've checked our public school policies and at least in the public system (I know you're an Independent school) sparklers are Class 1.4 Explosive dangerous goods but are permitted to be used in schools.

I would be ensuring I had a risk assessment that took into account their students ...

They were the Lascells Ripple Tank Mark III. Annoyingly I forgot to ask on the day what the RLTG paid for them. In WA, public schools are lucky that the Department has a pool of equipment that can be booked for loan. So with enough notice I could get one for loan but that would definitely be an ...

Our school has a Winc account that we use for anything and everything from stationery to our dishwashing detergent

We get these 100 packs from Winc. If you're gonna use them for hydrogen balloons just blow into them to stretch them a little before you do it

.... which I'm glad of as that means we get to skip the annual talk our Principal gives where we get a play by play of what happened on her farm for the last 6 weeks.


You sad individual Pm706, Staff all around Australia look forward to listening to this every year :cheesy: :yuck:


To follow ...

When does an SDS 'expire'? I currently just update them yearly to the newest released/revised from a primary source in Australia


To echo Rosalie, every 5 years. But as you've probably noticed some get updated more regularly

WA DoE uses ChemAlert for our registers and as part of that you can ...

Our first day back is tomorrow. We get 2 days before teachers are back in for the 2 development days.

For public school labbies, we get our own PD day on Thursday which I'm glad of as that means we get to skip the annual talk our Principal gives where we get a play by play of what happened on her ...

Just to clarify, Anna, I meant a register in the form of duplicate copies of every SDS for every chemical held on site stored in the main admin building. WorkSafe WA deemed that prohibitive and said the printed ChemAlert register would suffice. Every area chemicals are used has paper copies of the ...

We've actually got several new staff starting next year so I like the confirmation the more involved booking process encourages people to use the same pracs. We were assuming that was probably gonna happen regardless but anything to make prep simpler I'm all for.

We have found a workaround for the ...

Out of curiosity, how do we rate RiskAssess as an ordering tool? We've just started our trial but reading some of the responses in this thread, it sounds like most of the frustrations over ordering persist.

The thing I struggle to reconcile right now is the purpose for us getting it is to ensure we ...

Same as MM, there needs to be some form of hazardous chemical register that records all chemicals in the school. This is separate to the Science register.

Don't take as gospel as WHS laws differ across states but WorkSafe WA have advised WA schools that the front office should have access to some ...

I can't claim to have invented it as it was here when I got here but if you have the space I can definitely recommend it.

Also makes stocktaking them every year a breeze

What are we all using for slinkies?

We have a bunch of the metal IEC wave demo slinkies (the larger diameter ones) that we use for lower school. But the kids stretch the bejeezus out of them, they get all warped and mis-shapen. I've already had to throw one out because it got tangled in a way I can ...

We have a spot on our shelves with hooks for spring balances. 10 to a hook, 3 hooks' worth of each type.