Reusable Code

 The Ribbon Bands in Microsoft 365 provide an indication of the amount of reusable code used across all their applications. Reusable code is a good idea since routines only have to be written once for many applications and once working can be left alone.

Glass Bending

 Not really Chemistry, but learning to heat glass tubing and bend it to make delivery tubes for an experiment.

Interferometer

An Interferometer setup using a @pascoscientific wire sound sensor to record the data. Sound from a loudspeaker connected to a signal generator is fed into the interferometer. The sound then travels in both directions around the tube to the Pasco sound sensor. The length of one of the paths is then changed, and the signal is analysed

Chromatography

Rather than chromatography of coloured pens, it is a bit more exciting to see if the green extract of plant leaves is a single substance. Collecting leaves, grinding them up, and then running the Chromatogram in Petroleum Ether introduces solvents other than water.

 

Determine the mass of an AA Battery

 Using the @pascoscientific Metre stick and the Torque Mass Hanger set to determine the mass of an AA Battery.

Microwave

 My new @Lascells microwave kit has arrived. Now, we will be able to do a new range of experiments on microwave reflection, refraction, and polarisation. Although expensive, investing in a kit like this helps the students learn and remember new concepts in Physics.

Serial Dilutions

 Some A-Level Biology involves practising experimental techniques, like creating serial dilutions to determine the unknown concentration. The students have to learn to be accurate, and this comes with practice.

AI in Business

 Artificial Intelligence. There is a fundamental shift in how businesses will operate and compete as they embrace the new technology. Will it leave people jobless or create new, yet unimagined jobs? A Level Business - we investigate

BarCodes

Barcodes, QR Codes and scanners are part of everyday life, but how to they work and what information do they hold. We write programs to read these codes to find out and create our own codes to be scanned.
 

Salt from salt Ore

Separating substances. Year 9 students had not done and did not know how to separate the pure Salt from Salt Ore.. So we did the practical - some thought that tweezers would be an option - after a minute, they changed their minds.

Titer Concentration Determination

In the prep room, working out the exact concentration of an unknown using the @pascoscientific drop counter with the pH probe and the thermometer with the help of the magnetic stirrer. Can the students get the same answer using a burette? Probably not!

 

Maths Exam

Your maths exam will be coming to your exam room tomorrow, so remember the pen, pencil, compass, protractor, ruler, and eraser. And it might just be worthwhile doing a past paper today.

 

Diffraction

 Shining a red laser through a narrow slit? You’ll see diffraction in action! The light bends and spreads out, creating a pattern of bright and dark fringes—proof that light behaves like a wave.  #Physics #Diffraction #LaserLight

Diffusion

 A-Level Biology: Diffusion in Agar. Some tubes are filled with agar and an indicator, and the rate of diffusion of some acid is measured as it moves through the agar. By setting up a known series of concentrations, an unknown concentration can be determined.

Capturing the picture

 Trying to get the photo of the sailing boat, sailing in front of the Upper Thames Sailing Club

MicroLab

 It’s that time of year when the micro lab comes out of its suitcase and shows the students what type of computer was used and available in the 1980’s. The micro lab was used to teach the students how to diagnose computer faults

Distillation

Students learning how to separate two liquids of different boiling points using the distillation apparatus. The students had to choose all the parts, assemble them and then produce their distillation products.

 

Trigger Dropper

 This is the new Smart Cart Trigger Dropper from @pascoscientific. It can be used for explosions by programming when to depress the trigger, showing the path of a dropped ball, and demonstrating conservation of momentum. On my wish list, now to see if I can get one

Probability

Fun with probability. What are the odds that one of the cards in a blue-backed pack will be red? What is the probability that all the cards can change to red backs? Magic and sleight of hand beat all odds.
 

Old ways of doing things

 With all the electronic equipment, is there still a place in the Physics lab for a ticker tape timer and analogue data recording, like cutting up strips of ticker tape paper to create a graph? There is, as it increases, a student's knowledge of how to do something.

In my lab, the students do experiments every time they come in, some big and some small. Science is all about learning how the world works. It is about why this does this and how we can explain it.

Mayflies

 Thousands of Mayflies are out, dancing in the air to find a mate. Their life cycle is fascinating—from riverbed nymphs feeding on algae to two winged adult stages: the dull ‘dun’ (sub-imago), then the final imago that mates and dies within a day. #Nature #Mayflies #RiverLife

Dancing on the Breeze: The Brief but Beautiful Life of the Mayfly

Every year, as spring turns to summer and the air begins to warm, something magical happens along rivers and streams across the countryside. Thousands of delicate winged insects rise in shimmering clouds, flickering like confetti in the evening light. These are mayflies, and they’re here for just one reason: to find a mate before time runs out.

Mayflies are among the most ancient insects still alive today. Their lineage stretches back over 300 million years—well before the dinosaurs—and yet, despite their prehistoric pedigree, their adult life is astonishingly short. In fact, most adult mayflies live for less than a single day. Some last only a few hours. But what they lack in longevity, they make up for in spectacle.

A Life Begins Beneath the Surface

The mayfly's story begins not in the air, but in the water. After mating, the female lays thousands of tiny eggs directly onto the surface of a river or stream. These eggs quickly sink and settle into the silt and gravel at the bottom. It is here that the mayfly enters the longest phase of its life—as a nymph.

Mayfly nymphs (also called naiads) live underwater for anywhere from a few months to two years, depending on the species. They are an important part of the aquatic food chain, feeding on algae, detritus, and small plant material. In turn, they provide a critical food source for fish, birds, and other water-dwelling creatures.

During their time underwater, nymphs grow by moulting, shedding their exoskeleton multiple times. These little wrigglers are surprisingly active and can often be seen clinging to stones or swaying with the current in clear streams.

The First Emergence: The 'Dun'

Eventually, the nymph is ready to leave the water. It swims or crawls to the surface, where something remarkable happens—it undergoes a transformation. Emerging from its final nymphal skin, the mayfly takes to the air as a winged adult. But this isn’t its final form just yet.

This first winged stage is called the sub-imago, or more commonly, the ‘dun’. Duns are dull-coloured and slightly clumsy fliers, often with smoky, opaque wings. They rest on nearby vegetation to dry off and prepare for one last moult—the only insect to do so in its adult stage.

The Final Form: The 'Imago'

After moulting one final time, the mayfly emerges as an imago, the fully mature adult. It now sports clear, glassy wings, a more streamlined body, and often delicate, feathery tails. The transformation is complete—but the clock is ticking.

Mayfly adults don’t eat. They don’t even have functioning mouthparts. Their sole purpose now is to find a mate and reproduce. Males often gather in great swarms over the water, dancing up and down in shimmering clouds. Females fly into the swarm, pair up with a male mid-air, and then return to the water to lay their eggs.

And then, as swiftly as they came, the mayflies vanish. Their bodies, spent from the effort, fall gently onto the water or the ground—providing one last gift to the ecosystem in the form of nutrients for fish, frogs, birds, and other scavengers.

A Lesson in Ephemeral Beauty

The mayfly's brief appearance is a reminder of nature’s rhythm and resilience. Their lifecycle may seem fleeting to us, but each stage plays a vital role in the health of river ecosystems. For those lucky enough to witness a hatch, it's a moment of wonder—the sky filled with fragile wings, a thousand short stories told in a single day.

So the next time you walk along a riverbank and see a cloud of tiny insects dancing in the evening sun, take a moment to pause. You might be watching one of the oldest and most ephemeral shows on Earth.

Poverty and Exclusion

​An AI image of a boy sitting alone from others. To what extent are poverty and social exclusion linked? In the lessons, we explore whether this is true and what could be done about it.

Hard Disks

 What is the capacity of a hard disk? Years ago, 5- 10 MB was fantastic, a few years ago, a gigabyte disk was a dream, now Terabytes are standard. What will be the average in a few years? Will the hard disk have gone and be all solid state in just a few years, gone like the CD, DVD and Floppy disk?

Oil and Water

 Separating oil and water with a separating funnel? Easy. First I asked students to separate mixtures— They came up with tweezers for salt (briefly), syringing oil from water (messy). Lesson ended with laughter and learning.

A smartcarts eye view

 This is a @pascoscientific Smartcart's eye view of the track as the cart hurtles down it, sending information to Capstone so that the student can immediately take away with them the accurate data plot of the acceleration down the track.