One of the most popular demonstration experiments pertaining to Bernoulli's principle is the production of a water spray by using a vertical plastic straw immersed in a glass of water and a horizontal straw to blow air towards the top edge of the vertical one. A more general version of this phenomenon, appearing also in school physics problems, is…

Water can exhibit many different colors due to a variety of physical properties. Here, we focus on some observable colors within very pure freshwater. We only treat the absorption of light due to electronic and ro-vibrational excitations and scattering due to refractive index fluctuations of the water and the respective consequences for the…

Sustainability is emerging as a prominent curricular initiative at the undergraduate level, and as a result, involving students in real-world problems in the classroom and laboratory is an important goal. The specific problem of a dwindling supply of clean and safe drinking water is also of utmost importance and relevance. This general chemistry…

The authors describe their resources for raising awareness and encouraging positive water behaviours among young children. The DRY (Drought Risk and You) project brought together a multidisciplinary team to create a research-informed storybook and teachers' notes for 7- to 11-year-olds. This article takes a brief look at the book and reflects on…

A laboratory experiment that involves the synthesis, characterization, and application exploration of a metal-organic framework (MOF) has been developed for first-year undergraduates in the Faculty of Engineering at National University of Singapore. The desired MOF material was prepared from commercially available reagents in a facile…

Interfacial solar vapor generation has recently drawn much attention because of its high solar-to-vapor generation efficiency. Here we introduce the basic experimental procedures and analysis for undergraduates to perform such an experiment to catch up with the cutting-edge research wave. Interfacial solar vapor generation employs an interfacial…

When the road is wet (there is a water layer on the road surface), the road marks become blurred and drivers are distracted. We discuss the contributing processes and identify which processes are dominant to the occurrence of this phenomenon. Modelling and a simple experiment demonstrate that the dominant processes are: (a) refraction of light by…

The climate crisis is the defining human and child's rights challenge of this generation, and is already having a devastating impact on the well-being of children globally. Understanding where and how children are uniquely vulnerable to this crisis is crucial in responding to it. The Children's Climate Risk Index provides the first comprehensive…

This Statistical Compendium to the report "The State of the World's Children 2024: The Future of Childhood in a Changing World," offers vital statistics on child survival, development, and protection worldwide, supporting UNICEF's commitment to tracking progress toward global goals for children's and women's rights. It includes the…

In the laboratory, data acquisition systems are important, as they allow us to easily and precisely collect data. In this sense, Arduino emerges as an automatic data acquisition device with great potential, due to its low cost and high versatility. In this work, we describe the development of an experimental apparatus, with automatic data…

The author gives some simple but effective suggestions on 'going green' at home, including: (1) Get your children to love the outdoors; (2) Eat healthy and organic; (3) Reduce organic waste by composting; (4) Teach your children about the three Rs of recycling; and (5) Minimise your water consumption. Trusted adults modelling good eco-practices…

Although the use of real-world data sets is encouraged when teaching statistics, it can be difficult for instructors to find meaningful data for introducing students to univariate descriptive statistics such as the mean, median, and percentiles. The recent lead contamination of the water supply in Flint, Michigan, provides a real-life data set…

A new project-based laboratory (PJBL) was developed for general chemistry students to tackle the steps involved in chemical water quality analysis using an accessible, real-world hydrologic system (the lakes of the Lower Grand Coulee, Washington). This PJBL was developed in a joint general chemistry and environmental geology course by a…

This experiment combines analytical techniques of solid-phase extraction (SPE) and gas chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-QTOF-MS) to determine organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in river water as a means to develop and improve student understanding of the use of GC-QTOF-MS for qualitative and quantitative analysis. In…

A simple, repeatable and inexpensive laboratory practice applied to teach and discuss aquatic metal pollution and oxidative stress detoxification mechanisms through biomarker analyses, as well as important ecotoxicology concepts, is presented herein. It has been implemented in a university in Brazil to both undergraduate and Master's and PhD…