Eureka Can

Science should be taught as a series of problems to find solutions to. Giving the student everything takes the excitement out of science. Science is about students discovering how to do something with a bit of guidance. I give out lots of the wrong equipment and get the students to choose what is best.

Charles Law

 It was the first time I had done Charles Law using a dried capillary tube and a bead of conc Sulfuric Acid to determine the volume against the temperature. The experiment took 3 hours, but I now know how to make it faster to fit into an hour lesson. Jacques Charles made a major contribution to the study of gases. In 1787, he discovered that gases have a linear relationship between their volume and temperature, provided the pressure remains constant. This is known as Charles's Law, which states that the volume of a gas is directly proportional to its temperature.

Paraffin block puzzle

 I confused many of the students with the paraffin block puzzle. The bottom is dark, the top light. Turn is round anyway, and the bottom is still dark. It kept the students amused for quite a while whilst they tried to work out what I had done to it.

Wireless Geiger Counter

After many months of waiting for my @Pascoscientific Wireless Geiger Counter and stand to arrive, I particularly like the stand, being able to place sources at different distances and placing different thicknesses of different materials to absorb the radiation.
 

Diffraction of light

 Diffraction of light using a laser going through a single pinhole in a piece of Aluminium foil. I like introducing a topic by demonstrating an effect or, better still, letting the students do their own demo and then letting them come up with an explanation of what is happening

Comparing Alcohols

 Comparing the burning of different alcohols by colour and rate of burning. It's always interesting when asked to compare substances. The students usually suggest taste - then they read the bottle labels.

Computing - Go Dice Bluetooth

 Teaching topics like Bluetooth can be boring - so spicing this up a little using the Bluetooth Go Dice. We can get the values, and the orientation of the dice, whether they are being rolled or not and then we can program them so we can count the total or change the values