Phew!

We finished the third and last Stepping Stones evening on Thursday. Boy, was it hard work. A circus of 17 Physics kits set up in two labs, 2 small class pracs and one big one involving laptops and Logits and finished off by some classic physics demos. The agar plates from last week were on display – half of them had an assortment of colonies on them which was far more interesting than last year when everyone had excellent aseptic technique! But it was excellent. Everyone was challenged but pleasantly so and the feedback was great. It’s been good for us techs too, each of us brushing up our skills outside our usual area of responsibility. Perhaps more importantly, in the process of explaining to novices about the apparatus and experiments, we’ve learnt such a lot. It’s because you are forced to think more clearly and in a more focussed way in that situation. I also have to report that we understand better the problems our teaching colleagues have when running practicals or teaching a lesson!
The one hitch we had was, yes the IT technology. The laptops were fine, we chose the most up-to-date, set them up and had them logged into the wireless system and software loaded well before the start time and checked all the sockets were on! I also checked all the Logits and temperature probes were working and the battery symbols were reading full. Despite all that, 1 probe and one logit has system faults and two logits died. We had two spares available and we had to sacrifice the one attached to the digital OHP and lead purely by referring to the participant instruction sheet and vocally (thank goodness for P for this, who has a powerful voice - we do a bit of a 'Little and Large' act).
Anyhow a resounding success. I really appreciate and am grateful for all the enthusiastic work and input from everyone on our science technician team, and it's been really enjoyable working with them all on this project and I think they have all enjoyed it too despite all the work. I now have loads of photos and notes to post onto the Course website for the third and last evening, which is a pretty time consuming process but provides a very useful record for all of us as well as a means of follow up for the participants.

Yr12 Back, Marble Chips and the School Science Technician Role

Yr 12 are back and with a vengeance – starting the practical-heavy part of their A2 course before the students or teachers are whisked away to participate in all the end-of-year expeditions and events like the World Challenge Expedition, Do E, Yr7 nature reserve trip, Yr12 Essex Uni Chemistry and DNA all-day workshops, etc…

In chemistry it is the nitration of methyl benzoate which is an exercise in preparing a chemical product, purifying it and assessing its purity with melting point apparatus. P and I have a pact between us to empty the ice maker every chance we get in order to keep the freezer full as the nitration process makes heavy use of ice baths and crushed ice for crystallisation. We still haven’t found a satisfactory affordable machine for the latter, the device we use only takes 7 ice cubes at a time – slow!

The first two days of the Stepping Stones course have gone very well, everyone seems to enjoy themselves and this year we actually got through all the prepared practical activities. We achieved this by preparing beforehand all the constituents and doing some of the activities like the acid/base titration step-by-step and led from the front, Me on one side and P on the other, Little and Large!

‘Ah, but that’s not what science technicians do’, I can almost hear my imaginary readers say, ‘we just get the stuff out and wash up’. Well that is certainly true when things are busy (which is rather a lot of the time) and during a new science technician’s first year when they are learning the ropes. After that, we try things out.

An example. In the set up above, which is for a classic GCSE rate of reaction investigation, the purpose is to collect and measure the time taken for a fixed volume of gas to be given off when marble chips are reacted with bench dilute hydrochloric acid. Variables can be size of marble chips down to calcium carbonate powder, temperature at which the reaction takes place or more likely the concentration of the acid.

Sometimes the pupils have to find out for themselves appropriate ranges of concentration, what size measuring cylinder to use, etc. More usually they have less than hour for the practical and lesson, and we want to provide them with the ingredients that will actually give them satisfactory results and enthuse them. So, beforehand, the science technician would experiment with the plastic measuring cylinder sizes, bench HCl and other equipment available. So, say, surface area is being investigated - what amount of chips gives a reasonable result using a 100 cm3 plastic measuring cylinders, (of which we have loads)? We find the a volume of 80 cm3 is easy to read off on the inverted measuring cylinder. We also find that constantly swirling the conical flask once the stopper is in each time is the only way to get consistent and reasonable results. We also find that too large a quantity - the small chips react too fast to be controllable, use too small a quantity - and it takes over three minutes to get the 80cm3 of gas. The best results are with 2 grams of each size of chips which results in about 30secs with the small chips and 90secs with the large chips to produce 80cm3 of gas. That aspect of rate of reaction, surface area, can now be investigated successfully by the class in half an hour leaving time for the write-up theory and of course clearing up. DON’T forget the sieves and reminder to avoid the curse of the science technician’s work – BLOCKED SINKS!

Stepping Stones

The Stepping Stones course started last Thursday. It comprises three 2.5 hour sessions on three consecutive Thursday evenings. I try to keep the talking to a minimum to allow the maiximum time for practical activities. Each attendee has a ring binder with material referred to both from my introductory presentation and the activities as well as access to a course forum that I have set up with a lot of the same material and extra information and useful links. I've used a course area on the school VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) and made it private to the course attendees and the school science technician team. I've opened a forum facility within it as well as a message/chat facility and Quickmail. There is so little time to get everything across and this is my way of enhancing the time available. It has been an awful lot of work and I'm reallly pleased when an attendee actually posts. I think many of them are not accustomed to forums and the like, as well as having little if any experience of working in a secondary school or lab, so it's probably asking a lot of them. I've had some really encouraging responses and that keeps me going!

As well as all the prep for the above, the raw unroomed timetable has just plopped into my email. We're starting a two week timetable in September. First impression, not too bad, afternoons lighter than expected. Closer inspection - ugh - it's going to be much more complicated making sure the groups and teaching staff all have their fair share of timetabled labs rather than classrooms. It will take most of Monday for sure!

Elevated Job Status...

A Visiting Lecturer for Herts university no less! This is so I can be paid for the two sessions I presented for the regional SLC recently. I finally found time to look at the contract and forms today. It probably means I'll be getting tax forms as well now, : - ( . Financially I don't gain but I have to confess that I like my new job title very much. I worked really hard not only preparing my sessions, but setting up for, supporting and hosting both the one day courses. Both were about the job I love so it was well worth it!

The lightest week?

In theory but...! This week 3 work shadowers, inducting a team member whose been away ill for two terms, 3 primary school practical events, 4 sets of SLC impact forms to help complete, chemical orders, book returns, maintenance and furnishings tasks, training on Stepping Stones activities, working out budget for Stepping Stones technician support, sorting out old desktop in spare prep room for library system textbook returns, submitting hours for additonal technician help, etc etc.... and many tasks I should have done. I'm concerned it will be the end of term before I've looked at my main long term objectives like drafting our safety policy and also a presentation for Years 7 and 12 pupils on introducing the technician service and our tidy up after a practical expectations of them ready for September. I haven't yet looked at our domestic orders but I know we've run out of at least one essential resource, Marigold washing up gloves!

I'm pleased with one recent acquisition that I ordered for our recently returned technician, a light weight blue plastic trolley recommended by a fellow school science technician on the UCLAN archive list who had back problems and which is conveniently slightly higher than the other trollies so it lines up with the work bench heights, is a dream to push and has comfortable handles. You can fit two Gratnell trays side by side on the two lower trays and two overlapping on the top. Assembled valiently by our youngest technician team member (the moulded trays were not perfectly moulded and there was much banging involved in assembling ). GlS did the best price at about £230.

And another three weeks later...

Yr 13 went today, yr 11 are gone and Yr 12 are on study week until mid June. It is quieter but busy as ever. Three workshadowers to see to this week, a desparately needed clear out and tidy up and reorganising of the prep rooms and worksheet filing cabinets, ordering new stock, and so on. We found a couple of hours last week to visit a school about 45mins away who are no longer doing A levels and had surplus equipment. It's always interesting visiting other schools and their science technicians and it was a very pleasant visit. We even had a chance to say hello to the sea before leaving. Most of the equipment was pretty old and not used anymore but there some useful rectifying power packs and something I've always wanted - a Kipp's Apparatus. Okay I know it truly old fashioned but I love the way it works - if you close off the gas exit, the gas pushes the liquid reactant down into the lower chamber and back up the inner tube of the upper open chamber and the reaction is halted.. In the old days long ago, it was used to have a ready supply of hydrogen sulphide gas and hydrogen but no way Jose these days! I've set it up today with large limestone chips and bench hydrochloric acid so we can carbon dioxide on tap. It was immediately borrowed by a teacher to show his Yr 8 how effectively a little CO2 puts out candles. I don't know where we're going to store it yet but I shall definitely have it featuring on the Stepping Stones course!

Another Two Weeks Gone By

Gosh, the last two weeks have flown by. We're another tech down and still doing AS/A2 resit practical exams at lunchtime and after school but the technician team have mangaged admirably. Just one more week and we SHOULD have time to reflect, organise and even experiment. Having said that, we will be running the Stepping Stones 'So You Want to Be a School Science Technician' course immediately after Whitsun. In the weeks leading up to the course, each of the attendees are invited to a morning 'work-shadowing' with us. It's a chance for them to see what it is like working in a secondary school as well as get a flavour of what the job entails. We also learn something of their background which helps us to run the three evening sessions of the course effectively. Of course the work-shadowing takes up quite a bit of time as well as the preparation for the all the practical activities that are part of the course. And, also of course, it is why we do it this time of the year - same as all the other science dept annual events, many of which require our contribution. For example, the science college will be hosting quite a lot of special science practical lessons for local primary school pupils as well as shared events for the higher key stages.

So this week, we had our first work-shadower who enjoyed her visit and is very enthusiastic about the course, which is great. Also, our science tech who attended the NSCL Experienced Technician course with Dani, gave us an interesting presentation at our weekly tech training hour on what he's learnt (using some of Dani's blog resources for which we are most grateful). We had a fun activity making micro motors.

and had some useful discussions on our approach to supplying lesson resources linked to learning outcomes and feedback from teaching colleagues as well as some new ideas for demos and other practical activities.

At science club this week we did 'bubbles' outside. I'm not sure how much science was involved but the kids just loved it. We made up buckets of soap solution with water, Fairy liquid and glycerol. They dipped pre-formed shapes in it or rolled up paper cones and experimented with bubbles within bubbles, sizes and quantity. We also had a paddling pool of solution with a string wrapped hula hoop and a science museum kit of an inflatable circle 'trough' and a plastic ridged hoop, both for the purpose of making pupils inside a bubble. It was a challenge for them to get a good full height 'bubble'. I'm not too sure that we got the ratio of glycerol : Fairy liquid : water right - there are three different recipes in our instructions - or whether the heat of the bright sunshine and light intermittent breeze made it tricky. The science musuem kit needs to be on a perfectly level surface as the immersion trough is pretty minimal. I would say their hoop is superior to the string-wrapped hula hoop though. Anyway, it was wonderful sitting in the sun on a nearby bench ( I AM getting on you know) and snapping pics of the fun, so I thought. The trouble with digital cameras is you can't see the display clearly on a sunny day and it was in movie mode for some time. Blow! So, later that day, when I came to record my aforementioned soda snake demo, which DID work, the camera had run out of memory. And when I sorted that our, and tried again at the end of Friday, that soda snake demo did NOT work. Back to the Kolb's learning cycle. Humph!

Finally, here's something, maybe even a health hazard, that you probably would not have predicted.

23 Students in a practical exam diligently following instructions to dissolve a quantity of amino acid in a copper salt solution to form complex crystals by vigorously stirring the mixture with a glass rod in a 100cm3 beaker. It was painful. The teacher in charge had to have ear plugs.