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.