• Question: what was your favourite experiment at secondary school

    Asked by to Nat, Nate, Roberto, Sam, Sarah on 16 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Sarah Casewell

      Sarah Casewell answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      I remember making (small) flame throwers in chemistry using the alkali metals. We had them in solutions that you used a squeeze bottle to squirt through the bunsen burner flame. They all burn different colours, which is really cool, and they are also the colourants used in fireworks which I like!

    • Photo: Nate Bastian

      Nate Bastian answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      Calculating the acceleration of an object due to gravity.

    • Photo: Sam Connolly

      Sam Connolly answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      I enjoyed a lot of the experiments I did in Chemistry. One of the best ones I remember was making nylon, the plastic fibre a lot of clothes are made out of. It’s really cool! You make it from two different liquids – one is lighter than the other one, so one floats on top of the other one (similar to how oil floats on vinegar in salad dressing, if you’ve ever seen that). At the point where the liquids meet, they react to make nylon, so there’s a thin layer of the plastic between them. If you get some tweezers, you can grip the nylon and pull it out, and as you do more of the liquids react and make a string of nylon. There’s a video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgNL3HlOIIs

    • Photo: Natasha Stephen

      Natasha Stephen answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      I loved most of the chemistry experiments I did at secondary school. I agree with Sarah that making coloured flames and fireworks in the lab was definitely a great practical but I’m not so sure that it’s still done in schools now? Perhaps someone can let us know?

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