6 ms·

Really? That's high school chemistry in this part of the world

leggomylibro 9y ago
That's awesome - and it really isn't so dangerous as long as you are careful and do your experiments around others who also know what they're doing. I actually love the sense of 'you can do anything' that this sort of education inspires. But, y'know, it's not the sort of thing I'd hand a 14-year-old before heading off for the weekend. And imagining what would happen if you brought this to your chemistry class today in the US is pretty amusing.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  What's a typical high school chemistry experiment in the USA? Do the students do things, or does the teacher do everything? Burning hydrogen was a standard method for testing its presence, from when I was about 11-12 in 1997.
  - whatshisface 9y ago
    Measuring the volume of one liter of water. But, more seriously, it depends almost entirely on the highschool itself. I know of a range going from essentially no lab work to undergrad material with looser report grading - and I imagine that top flight magnet schools must have all sorts of amazing equipment.
  - rjeli 9y ago
    My high school chemistry was a year of learning the names of glassware and many experiments of just measuring water. We did one titration at the end. once, we got to watch the teacher go into the back room and get two chemicals, mixing them together and we watched it change colors. then back to usual. Didn’t even learn dimensional analysis til undergrad.
  - eat_veggies 9y ago
    I took chemistry in high school last year, so I can answer this. Some of our most exciting labs were - identifying different metal oxides by the color of their flames over a bunsen burner - paper chromatography to identify a the "crime suspect" who wrote a "ransom note" based on different pens - made brass pennies with zinc dust, copper pennies, and a hot plate - made our own chalk We did all the labs on our own except for the brass pennies, because it was way more efficient to stir the pennies up all at once in the zinc powder than individually. I really enjoyed that class, but I do go to a school that prides itself in math and science, and our football team loses every time :)
    - Symbiote 9y ago
      OK, so for comparison. When I was: About 11-13: - Separating the chlorophyll from grass (simmer in ethanol). Apparently the standard school experiment is then to do chromatography to show different pigments absorb different wavelengths, but I don't remember this bit. - Flame tests for metal oxides would be here, although not the theory. - Acids/bases and indicators. Making and testing for gases (oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide). So mostly seeing who could make the most hydrogen from magnesium + hydrochloric acid, in order to make the loudest "pop" sound when it was lit. 14-16: - Burning magnesium powder to reduce iron oxide to iron; the thermite reaction used to weld railways tracks. I think we had to calculate the atomic mass of oxygen afterwards. Presumably related to studying reactivity of metals. - Teacher demoed making hydrogen from natural gas over a nickel (?) catalyst. Memorable for the explosion at the end, which I'm certain is what he intended. 16-18: - Making lead oxide, the bright yellow colour that used to be the one used to paint lines on roads. Probably to study different oxidation states, since lead has different colours. - Making an ester (carboxylic acid and an alcohol), the flavour used in old sweets [candy] that smells a bit like pears. I think this was practise for the practical exam, which I've forgotten. We probably had to measure the purity at the end. - We misbehaved making the ester, so the other class got to pour concentrated sulphuric acid on sugar, but the teacher demoed it to us. (The sugar turns to carbon.) - The "concentrated" sulphuric, nitric and hydrochloric acid bottles, plus the ammonia solution. Other than a test for ammonia gas, I don't remember the purpose of this. This was 1996-2004-ish. I have no idea how the sports teams performed, that's not really a thing in England.
- WillReplyfFood 9y ago
  Its actually a perspective thing. If you are powerfull, and huamnity forms your "maschine"- anything overreaching, or doing unexpected things, that might be put as your "fault", will be viewed as a dangerous error. With great power, comes great deformation of what constitutes good and bad.

That's awesome - and it really isn't so dangerous as long as you are careful and do your experiments around others who also know what they're doing. I actually love the sense of 'you can do anything' that this sort of education inspires. But, y'know, it's not the sort of thing I'd hand a 14-year-old before heading off for the weekend. And imagining what would happen if you brought this to your chemistry class today in the US is pretty amusing.

Symbiote 9y ago
What's a typical high school chemistry experiment in the USA? Do the students do things, or does the teacher do everything? Burning hydrogen was a standard method for testing its presence, from when I was about 11-12 in 1997.
- whatshisface 9y ago
  Measuring the volume of one liter of water. But, more seriously, it depends almost entirely on the highschool itself. I know of a range going from essentially no lab work to undergrad material with looser report grading - and I imagine that top flight magnet schools must have all sorts of amazing equipment.
- rjeli 9y ago
  My high school chemistry was a year of learning the names of glassware and many experiments of just measuring water. We did one titration at the end. once, we got to watch the teacher go into the back room and get two chemicals, mixing them together and we watched it change colors. then back to usual. Didn’t even learn dimensional analysis til undergrad.
- eat_veggies 9y ago
  I took chemistry in high school last year, so I can answer this. Some of our most exciting labs were - identifying different metal oxides by the color of their flames over a bunsen burner - paper chromatography to identify a the "crime suspect" who wrote a "ransom note" based on different pens - made brass pennies with zinc dust, copper pennies, and a hot plate - made our own chalk We did all the labs on our own except for the brass pennies, because it was way more efficient to stir the pennies up all at once in the zinc powder than individually. I really enjoyed that class, but I do go to a school that prides itself in math and science, and our football team loses every time :)
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    OK, so for comparison. When I was: About 11-13: - Separating the chlorophyll from grass (simmer in ethanol). Apparently the standard school experiment is then to do chromatography to show different pigments absorb different wavelengths, but I don't remember this bit. - Flame tests for metal oxides would be here, although not the theory. - Acids/bases and indicators. Making and testing for gases (oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide). So mostly seeing who could make the most hydrogen from magnesium + hydrochloric acid, in order to make the loudest "pop" sound when it was lit. 14-16: - Burning magnesium powder to reduce iron oxide to iron; the thermite reaction used to weld railways tracks. I think we had to calculate the atomic mass of oxygen afterwards. Presumably related to studying reactivity of metals. - Teacher demoed making hydrogen from natural gas over a nickel (?) catalyst. Memorable for the explosion at the end, which I'm certain is what he intended. 16-18: - Making lead oxide, the bright yellow colour that used to be the one used to paint lines on roads. Probably to study different oxidation states, since lead has different colours. - Making an ester (carboxylic acid and an alcohol), the flavour used in old sweets [candy] that smells a bit like pears. I think this was practise for the practical exam, which I've forgotten. We probably had to measure the purity at the end. - We misbehaved making the ester, so the other class got to pour concentrated sulphuric acid on sugar, but the teacher demoed it to us. (The sugar turns to carbon.) - The "concentrated" sulphuric, nitric and hydrochloric acid bottles, plus the ammonia solution. Other than a test for ammonia gas, I don't remember the purpose of this. This was 1996-2004-ish. I have no idea how the sports teams performed, that's not really a thing in England.
WillReplyfFood 9y ago
Its actually a perspective thing. If you are powerfull, and huamnity forms your "maschine"- anything overreaching, or doing unexpected things, that might be put as your "fault", will be viewed as a dangerous error. With great power, comes great deformation of what constitutes good and bad.