Australia's Science Forum

The Fibreglass Shop was a go! Thanks Andrew.

Hi all,

Does anyone know what sort of place I'd get a small quantity (couple of liters) of the two chemicals to make polyurethane foam?

Courtney.

Thanks so much, I'll try those. It will be great to get the kids to use babyfood jars and take it home. Fun for them and great for me!!!

Thanks again!

Hi all,

Does anyone have a recipe for making zinc cream? Have a new teacher that would like to make it in a few weeks.

Thanks,
Courtney.

Thanks for that, I've been feeding them once a day now and have abbandoned the guppy salt. My one remaining fish is still alive thus far. No white spots but it seems to be "bent" a little and tends to favour one corner of the tank. Doesn't seem very hungry either.

Help, I'm killing the guppies! Some time last year our tank of about 20 guppies that sits in the biology room started to all go wrong, by the first few weeks of this year we'd lost all of them. I don't know what I'm doing wrong or what is happening to them. Twice a day I feed them livebearer tropica...

Hi, Just got some more info on medical checks. apparently they are required by law when workers are exposed to certain hazardous substances including: Asbestos Crystalline silica 4,4'-methylene bis (2-chloroanline) (MOCA) Vinyl chloride Isocyanates Organophosphorous pesticides Acrylonitrile Benzene ...

Thanks for that, gives me a great starting point.

Hi all, I was wondering whether anyone had any info on keeping radioactive sources in schools (relevant to Australia or Tasmania regulations)? I looked on the ASCC website but it didn't seem extremely helpful. Currently we have three sources, all of which I'm told exceed "recommended" limi...

Sent you off a copy Tammy. Again, it's not much, but it's a starting point. That bromine situation makes me shudder. I know my sense of smell must be warped by working in science. Someone spilt some lovely fish juices in the fridge a while back and it was (apparently) stinking out that room. I didn'...

Just faxed it to you Judy. I hope it's of some help.

Hi, I'd also be interested if anyone out there has more info. I also work at a private school and often any changes must be initated by those it effects. At a recent chemical course I took they gave some info about it which I am yet to persue more. But basically it went into "exposure monitorin...

Thanks, I think the teacher demonstration idea is good. Now they will do the prac by doing all the various reactions and when that particular one doesn't work the teacher will tell the kids why and show them the demonstration with the stronger solutions. You may well be right about the old lab tech,...

Just spoke to a friend doing his PHD in chemistry. Even though I was told they always used 0.1M it is utterly impossible that this ever worked. It will only work using 1M silver nitrate and potassium sulphate.

Hi all, I'm having some trouble getting a precipitation prac to work and was wondering whether anyone had any ideas (my background is more human biology than chemistry). They are doing a prac where they react Silver nitrate, lead nitrate and magnesium nitrate with potassium nitrate, chloride, iodide...

We too have order forms but I also accept emails, as long as it is a written request I don't mind (then I can stick it to the prac tray and when something is missing they can see that it was them that forgot to order it). teachers are for the most part good at getting requests to me with 2 working d...

I agree, everything should be on the register. I may have gone too far with the toothepaste but hey, why not, lol. Do different states or government schools have very different requirements for this sort of thing (have only ever worked in Tassy in a private one)? As although we do have a register wi...

We use the mini-MSDS' off Chemwatch too, one accompanies each chemical into every classroom and teachers use them for their safety pre-lab and for quick reference. We still have the full MSDS' of course but like everyone else, they are seldom looked at by teachers. At the moment our chemical registe...

Yes, I also re-use the copper sulphate in this way. We'd use kg's otherwise. I found filtering before evaporating is good too to get rid of bits of dust or whatever.

Ahhh, thank you very much, I am a little less confused now!