Australia's Science Forum

Use the name as a clue - "20 volumes" mean that from a given volume of hydrogen peroxide, the decomposition reaction will give off 20 times that volume of oxygen. So I suppose you could use one twentieth the combined volume of your gas jars. MnO2 is just a catalyst in the reaction.

I used Chemwatch FFX Gold in other schools, but just use Excel now.

Bought sets of conductivity rods from one of the big providers. They're not connected to anything, so the first thing that will happen is the metals will all get mixed up. And one of the rods is LEAD, which we're not meant to give to lower school, and would it be a good idea to heat a toxic metal? H...

Good luck with your quest, but we will never have mercury in our school again. It's far too dangerous, too easy to spill, and too hard to safely clean up.

Ferrous is iron II. Ferric is iron III.

I reckon it's GREAT that they're banning these items. We'll have to use metal spoons and paper straws (I've already started buying these). And I can't wait until they ban balloons too! We will find other ways, because that's what scientists do. I'm pleased with any move to reduce plastic waste.

That's absolutely something that should not happen. Even small amounts of copper going down a sink contaminates sewage sludge so badly that it cannot be used as fertiliser. And a WHS nightmare for the school if something goes wrong. That's interesting - yes, copper can be toxic to plants, in fact w...

That's absolutely something that should not happen. Even small amounts of copper going down a sink contaminates sewage sludge so badly that it cannot be used as fertiliser. And a WHS nightmare for the school if something goes wrong.

I googled this - aldehyde, ketone, alcohol and ether are all organic bases.

Hi all. I believe I've discovered the perfect hay infusion recipe. Prep five days before use. Jar with holes in lid. Teaspoon soil from biodiverse area of garden (e.g. under a tree with lots of mulch on ground). Teaspoon home-made compost (not the stuff you buy). Handful mulch/straw/hay. About five ...

I bag them and put them in the freezer. We sometimes get four years use before they get a hole. No saline required.

I have hidden all our mercury and taken it off the chem store location list. Stupid to have it around - it's going when we have enough stuff for the disposal company to collect. Check out this gallium video on YouTube - it can't be quite as dangerous as RiskAssess would have us believe. https://www....

I've made this in the past and it's not colourless. And if it were, how would colorimetry work?

Head teacher puts on a big show every year for the year 7 experience day. One part of the extravaganza this year was elephant's toothpaste - but it was raining and we had to do it inside. I gave him a smaller reaction vessel, but he used the same amounts of reactants. Voila! Elephant's toothpaste on...

Looks like westlab may have actually put thought into the design! Unlike the twits at MTA - they're gonna get them all sent back. And that box for the wall is exactly what I want.

Oooh bigmack, excellent! Thanks for the inspiration.

I just had a look on the Westlab site and they are Gratnells kits and do look the same, though the slots for the glasses look bigger. Good luck with that! I'm going to track down a cabinet that goes on the wall to store the glasses - the kids won't bother putting the glasses in a fiddly foam insert ...

We bought three kits from MTA. Thirty glasses, box and foam insert for storage in each kit. And would you believe - you can't even fit all the glasses in the box! Holes in foam insert are too small and by the time you get to the last two rows the glasses won't fit in. They never even tried them out,...

Products are oxygen, water and iodine. So I reckon don't do it on concrete, coz of the iodine. Probably even worse if you use the food colouring option.