High school laboratories

In the spring of 1989, it was announced that electrochemists at the University of Utah had produced a sustained nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature, using simple equipment available in any high school laboratory. The process, referred to as cold fusion, consists of loading deuterium into pieces of palladium metal by electrolysis of heavy water, E)20, thereby developing a sufficiently large density of deuterium nuclei in the metal lattice to cause fusion between these nuclei to occur. These results have proven extremely difficult to confirm (20,21). Neutrons usually have not been detected in cold fusion experiments, so that the D-D fusion reaction familiar to nuclear physicists does not seem to be the explanation for the experimental results, which typically involve the release of heat and sometimes gamma rays. 

Each element has a characteristic emission spectrum. Why is it only possible to observe the emission spectra of selected elements in a high school laboratory ... 

To determine enthalpy changes in high school laboratories, a coffee-cup calorimeter provides fairly accurate results. A coffee-cup calorimeter is composed of two nested polystyrene cups ( coffee cups ). They can be placed in a 250 mL beaker for added stability. Since a coffee-cup calorimeter is open to the atmosphere, it is also called a constant-pressure calorimeter. 

Have you ever opened an old bottle of hydrogen peroxide and noticed that it has lost its potency The hydrogen peroxide has decomposed, leaving you with a bottle of water. At room temperature, in the absence of a catalyst, the decomposition of H2O2 occurs very slowly, over a period of months or years. With the help of a catalyst, however, the rate of the reaction can be increased to the point where it can be easily studied in a high school laboratory. 

The same can be said for student high school laboratory experiences. While we may think our incoming college students have already mastered basic laboratory techniques in high school, that is often not the case. In fact, the National Research Council s (NRC) 2006 investigation of the state of laboratory instruction in high schools in the United States concluded the quality of current laboratory experiences is poor for most students (NRC 2006). In most high school laboratory pro-... 

Only diluted corrosives should be used in pre-high school laboratories and their use at full-strength in high school should be limited. 

Kelter, P. B. Grundman, J. Hage, D. S. Carr, J. D. Castro-Acuna, C. M. A Discussion of Water Pollution in the U.S. and Mexico, with High School Laboratory Activities for Analysis of Lead, Atrazine, and Nitrate, / Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 1413-1421. 

Schwab [1] and Herron [2] first developed and presented a rubric for identifying the amount of inquiry in high school laboratory activities. Their Levels of Openness rubric used three characteristics to determine the type of inquiry facilitated by a given activity. Each laboratory activity was analyzed via the problem, the question that would be investigated in the laboratory, the ways and means, the procedure used in the activity, and answers, the findings or conclusions. To detennine the level of inquiry, each characteristic was coded as given or open [1]. Table 1 displays the levels of inquiry yielded by this rubric. 

These materials should not be in high school laboratories. 

Brown, S. C. (1958). Do college students benefit from high school laboratory courses American Journal of Physics, 26, 334-337. 

High school students should have a greater understanding of global environmental issues. This can be accomplished by using environmentally-relevant examples to teach high school chemistry. Appropriate demonstrations and laboratory experiments that illustrate these topics are suggested. To incorporate additional environmental chemistry in die secondary curriculum, help from environmental scientists will be needed. 

Expository-type laboratory activities will continue to be needed for the development of basic experimental skills of the students, despite their inefficiency in providing a realistic scientific environment and in promoting the use of higher-order cognitive skills. Even defenders of the conventiorral-type of laboratory and laboratory manrral do not claim that they are always wisely used, nor do they claim that they shorrldbe used exclusively (Ault, 2002 2004). However, the domirrant problem is that despite the fact that research has established the superiority of irrqrriry laboratory activities over verification laboratory activities, cookbook laboratory activities are still prevalent in many high school and college irrstitutions (Monteyne, Mark, Cracolice, 2004). ... 

After graduating from Mikunigaoka High School, Osaka, he studied chemistry at the University of Tokyo from 1968 to 1972 and continued research on hydrido complexes and transition metal hydrides to earn the Dr. sc. degree under the supervision of Professor Yukiyoshi Sasaki in 1977. As a postdoctoral fellow, he worked with Professor John D. Corbett at the Ames Laboratory from 1977 to 1979, and with Professor Arndt Simon at Max-Planck-Institut fur Festkorperforschung, Stuttgart, Germany from 1979 to 1981. In... 

KRISTI LEW is a former high school science teacher with degrees in biochemistry and genetics. After years in the classroom and cytogenetics laboratories, she decided that she wanted to write full-time. She is the author of more than 20 nonfiction science books for students and teachers. 

Until he discovered the joys of scientific experimentation in high school chemistry and physics classes, Paul was only an average student. Afterward, his grades fell even lower because he spent all his free time in his little home laboratory. Paul s mother and school principal lectured him sternly to raise... 

Mendeleev soon got a post teaching mathematics and physics at an Odessa high school. Granted permission to use the library and laboratory at Novorossisk University, he launched into research for his master s thesis. By May of 1856 he had completed a first draft. He revised it during the summer and was awarded a master of physics and chemistry degree by the University of St. Petersburg in September. 

In early 1987, the composition and structure of the La-Ba-Cu -O superconductor was still unknown to the general public in the United States. By March of that year certain facts became known from Japanese publications. But at this point in time, a newer, higher Tc (> 90 K) material was announced. This new copper oxide superconductor was quite easy to prepare and, in addition to interested physicists, these new materials could be synthesized by ceramists, chemists, metallurgists, material scientists, or anyone with a knowledge of a chemical approach to solid-state materials. Even high school students developed simple methods for the synthesis of these compounds. The "high" transition temperature and the possible use of liquid nitrogen made research in superconductivity accessible to most scientists and laboratories. The media also capitalized on this worthy news report and published it in newspapers and also presented it on television as a news item. 

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