Tell us your school chemistry stories

[summerdays]

If only Vernon was still here... his chemistry stories were the stuff of legend.

I suspect he MADE the kids chemistry stories

 

[summerdays]

Mind you our teacher cutting a piece of Sodium that was just a little too big to be dropped in water was fun.

My chemistry teacher carried out that or similar experiment .... it was showing us the reactions of that group and collecting the gas in a test tube, and basically managed to blow the whole lot up. He managed to get a mention on Radio 1 for that particular experiment - Mr Gleason I think?

He also had water bottle fights (though multiple classrooms, interrupting other lessons) fights with those balls used to make chemical models etc. He was one of those teachers who forgot to read the book on how to teach safely and how to behave!

I really enjoyed Chemistry! (He was probably a distant relation to Vernon!)

 

[postman]

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If only Vernon was still here... his chemistry stories were the stuff of legend.


Here is one of Vernon's,something drops under the Orange thing in the corner at 59 seconds.

 

[Drago]

Wasn't lithium like sodium? Chuck it in some water and kerblammo!

 

[raleighnut]

Wasn't lithium like sodium? Chuck it in some water and kerblammo!

Potassium is worse than Sodium (it's more reactive) Lithium even more so.

 

[Drago]

Blowing stuff up. Wish I'd got on a dems course or joined the artillery.

 

[Profpointy]

Mind you our teacher cutting a piece of Sodium that was just a little too big to be dropped in water was fun.

I bet the old hands new exactly how "slightly too big" a piece of sodium needed to be to make chemistry really exciting. I loved it at.schoole

 

[Profpointy]

Potassium is worse than Sodium (it's more reactive) Lithium even more so.

Lithium considerably less so

 

[Jenkins]

I remember having ''[marmoset's] interest has clearly been on other things this year'' in a report and, truth be told, he was definitely right. I remember filching a strip of magnesium once and then attempting to light it at home in an electric bar fire. It was only then that I learned that magnesium conducts electricity rather well....

Some git told on me when I tried to take a couple of strips home to see if a lighter would set them off.

 

[ColinJ]

I was still a schoolboy, but the following didn't take place at my school; it was at a public lecture at Warwick University given by some famous old man who liked to cause explosions.

He mixed various combinations of solid chemicals and gasses which either spontaneously exploded or did so when lit or hit. He destroyed containers, nearly perforated our eardrums, and blinded us with bright flashes, but there was one particular demonstration which made a lasting impression on me. It very nearly LITERALLY made a lasting impression on me ...

He mixed some more chemicals in a metal cyclinder and placed a heavy metal lid on top of it. Puffs of smoke emerged from round the rim of the cyclinder, under the lid. The lid started rattling. Pyro-man took cover. We watched in horrified fascination ... I was sitting in the middle of the topmost row of the sloping gallery of the lecture theatre. Suddenly, there was a huge explosion!

I think the idea was that the lid would shoot vertically upwards but in fact it came hurtling up towards me, as if thrown by some crazed terrorist discus thrower. I ducked and the chunk of metal slammed into the wall behind where my head had just been!

I heard a shaky voice from the stage ... "Sorry about that - I think I used too much oxidant in the mixture!"


PS I have just found another version of my tale posted about 4 years ago. There are subtle differences but the gist of it is the same. It was 40 or 50 years ago so the exact details are a bit fuzzy now ...

 

[Julia9054]

Mind you our teacher cutting a piece of Sodium that was just a little too big to be dropped in water was fun.

Yeah - I managed to set fire to my own school bag doing that when I was on teaching practice

 

[simon the viking]

Filling up the disposable plastic gloves with gas... then sticking a lighted splint in to it..... Poof..... Shrivel

Setting fire to end of the gas taps....

And (as above) nicking a foot of magnesium and taking it home.....

 

[Drago]

Lithium considerably less so

He should know. He is a professor.

 

[Profpointy]

He should know. He is a professor.

Sadly only an honorific title from my friends, and not for chemistry. There may have been an smidge of sarcasm

 

[Julia9054]

Teaching in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe in the early nineties, I had a class of extremely studious and well behaved girls. We were doing an experiment with Bunsen burners and I was talking to a group at the front of the classroom about their experiment. I was aware of 3 girls standing behind me politely waiting to talk to me. I finished my conversation and turned to them. "Yes girls?"
"Please Ma'am, our experiment is on fire"
The rubber had perished on the Bunsen, the gas tap had set on fire and several exercise books were alight but they were too polite to interrupt me when I was talking!