Here we describe classroom-based procedures aiming at the estimation of the speed of sound in different gas mixtures with the help of a plastic drain pipe and two iPhones or iPod touches. The procedures were conceived to be performed with simple and readily available tools.

The gyroscope in a smartphone was employed in a physics laboratory setting to verify the conservation of angular momentum and the nonconservation of rotational kinetic energy. As is well-known, smartphones are ubiquitous on college campuses. These devices have a panoply of built-in sensors. This creates a unique opportunity for a new paradigm in…

A simple method is presented to show kids the size of a microbe--a fungus hypha--compared to a human hair. Common household items are used to make sterile medium on a stove or hotplate, which is dispensed in the cells of a weekly plastic pill box. Mold fungi can be easily and safely grown on the medium from the classroom environment. A microscope…

"The viscosity of the blood in narrow capillary tubes" by Robin Fahraeus and Torsten Lindqvist ("Am J Physiol" 96: 562--568, 1931) can be a valuable opportunity for teaching basic hemorheological principles in undergraduate cardiovascular physiology. This classic paper demonstrates that a progressive decline in apparent…

The familiar bell-jar demonstration, commonly used to show that sound cannot travel in a vacuum, is revisited in this study. It is suggested that by emphasizing the different media present in this set-up, sound propagation in near-vacuum conditions can be made possible. In this way, the concept of sound propagation in this set-up can be examined…

A two-part demonstration was conducted in our first-semester organic chemistry course designed to introduce students to the formation of alcohols, regioselective reactions, and analysis of organic products by NMR analysis. This demonstration utilized the oxymercuration-demercuration sequence to prepare an alcohol from an alkene in a Markovnikov…

Previous studies have shown that pouched rats can detect the presence of "Mycobacterium tuberculosis," which causes tuberculosis, in human sputum samples obtained from clinical facilities. Although pouched rats evaluate sputum samples quickly, preparing the samples is relatively slow. The present study evaluated whether the rats can detect…

This study aimed to investigate obstacles that prevent implementation of science curriculum which was developed within the Education Reform for the Knowledge Economy project (ErfKE). To achieve this, a purposeful sample consisted of four teachers of science for the basic stage in the town located in the north of Jordan in the first semester of the…

In this paper, we present a low-cost method to study the Gay-Lussac's law. We use a heating wire wrapped around the test tube to heat the air inside and make use of a solid state pressure sensor which requires a previous calibration to measure the pressure in the test tube.

This study aimed at investigation of the roles of the laboratory in students' academic achievement in chemistry in secondary schools in Ebonyi State of Nigeria. Four research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. A sample of 240 students selected through simple random sampling technique from ten secondary schools in the 3 Education Zones…

The investigation aims in this study were to uncover the observations of infrastructures and physics laboratory in vocational high school for Stone and Concrete Construction Techniques Expertise Field or Teknik Konstruksi Batu dan Beton (TKBB)'s in Purwokerto Central Java Province, mapping the Vocational High School or Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan…

A two-part laboratory exercise was developed to enhance classroom instruction on the significance of p53 mutations in cancer development. Students were asked to mine key information from an international database of p53 genetic changes related to cancer, the IARC TP53 database. Using this database, students designed several data mining activities…

A simple and ecofriendly procedure was developed in order to prepare extracts from red and green leaves. This procedure enables the separation of yellow, green, and red band pigments and optimizes the previously reported baking soda "supermarket column". The same extract also led to a novel and colorful potato starch column, which can…

In this article, we present two concrete applications of the concept of the human element to chemistry education; starting with a course and experimental project on blue pigment synthesis and concluding with cross-disciplinary lessons and experiments on blue photography. In addition to the description of the content of these courses, we explore…

An assignment incorporating posters into a second-year analytical chemistry lab is described. Students work in groups and are assigned one of the application-themed weekly laboratories as a topic. Course data acquired for these weekly laboratories are compiled into spreadsheets that the poster group then analyzes to present in an on-campus poster…