Australia's Science Forum

I restock the labs once a fortnight, clean the sinks every blue moon and remove items that belong in Prep/Equipment rooms or Chem Store. Help with graffiti removal if asked nicely.

*clarify User Code for 4M NaOH
*make LPG User Code 7-12

2 days after scratching around for 60 suitable containers to weigh out 1g of various stuff for solubility tests, and washing all the 50ml beakers etc. afterwards, I was in the supermarket and noticed the FFP have plastic shot glasses at a throw-away price, $2.65 for 100.

Hi labbies. Where can I get a superconductor/meisner effect kit that comes with a cube shaped magnet?

What does everyone do with labelling 'unknowns', do you put the User Code colour dots and DGC group where appropriate, or just A,B,C ... X,Y,Z etc.? Just that it could be a dead-set give-away in some cases, for cluey seniors at least.

Hi Nicky, you probably not adding enough NaOH & phenolphthalein. If you use my recipe on page 1, it will come out State-of-Origin maroon but teachers here never complain.

whoops, meant 0.0902M

I just standardised a 0.1M NaOH solution, tried to make it stronger rather than weaker so weighed out ~8.5g NaOH for 2 litres, but it came out at 0.9025M. I used aliquots of 0.51g KHP and average of 3 titres was 27.7ml - all in close range. There's only ~1% impurities listed on the NaOH pack so I'm ...

Schoolkid expelled after reacting aluminium foil with sodium hydroxide in a plastic bottle, in an unsupervised experiment in the playground. Bottle explodes, and the assistant principal rings the police who charge the student with possessing, making, placing and discharging a destructive device. Goo...

Graham: just got the signs. Reads:

AAC is a Nut Aware College. Please help protect our children with severe allergies by leaving nut products at home.

(still prefer my version)

We've gone from nut-free to nut-aware. In my inbox this morning:

Nut Free / Nut Aware Signs – Could you please check each classroom/ staffroom that the Nut Free Signs have been replaced with Nut Aware Signs? Please email me if you require a Nut Aware Sign.

Beware the nut:

Its the principle - if he originally stole them for Science, then they're ours.

Mr X must have knocked off a dozen protractors from the Maths Dept. many years ago; how else could he have known from whence they came when he retrieved them from the Prep Room, now he's working in Maths? So busted, unless he's just pulled a swifty.

thanx, I'll try Big W

Where can I get hoola hoops?
I've tried The Reject Shop and Crazy Clark's without success.

..why I don't want a freezer here. Same happened to me at another school, so I'm happy with just a bar-size fridge for H2O2 etc. and a few ice-blocks. Any left-overs from dissection pracs are disposed of at end of day.

You can check progress of fermentation with a hydrometer. A typical home-brew beer starts at about SG 1040 and finishes about 1010, and % ethanol can be calculated by finding the difference between these figures and applying a fudge-factor. Of course, the brewer doesn't run the air-lock into limewat...

Hi Narelle
Hawkesbury Valley Meat Processors on King Road, Wilberforce (02) 4575 2067
Vehicular access from M&A butcher shop (worth checking out for home meat supplies) on the road frontage.
Beef eyes are bigger, and someone's got to cut them out of the heads - oh well, its the school's $

I get mine from the local abbatoir; they were $2 but since the C-Tax they've gone to $3, + GST = $3.30

there's another thread on this; see 'Electrophoresis Gel'