Australia's Science Forum

We feed ours to our collection of reptiles and salt water fish therefore the complicated diet for them! Our worms are so well fed they have several chins (their whole length in fact) and refuse to become beetles as they know they won't be fed anything but mortein if they reach that stage!

Are you keeping them as pets or fattening them up as food for larger pets i.e. lizards/fish/school canteen?

Its important to provide roughly 3 inches of high-quality and nutritious substrate for the worms to burrow in and eat. Many people keep their mealworms on a simple substrate of oat bran. We prefer to maximize the nutritional quality of the substrate since the mealworms actually eat it. We include a ...

Hello All! We had some good news yesterday at our faculty meeting regarding our ARC which houses a very modern fish farm. I'm told it's only 1 of 3 in NSW Government schools, it's state of the art and until Monday was run by our computer co-ordinator who did have an interest in automation and aquacu...

I may pop in to cast an eye over our fish tanks but other than that I'm out of here!!!!!!

The Laboratory - a science reference & preparation manual for schools (isbn: 0 646 38578 X) by B.Dungey (great name! Almost as good as Dick Envy) and also Dr Feggs Book of All World Knowledge (only joking with that one - but it is a real book!)

Further to this, in NSW MSDS sheets can be no older than 5 years to allow for updated information, be mindful also that items that we keep that aren't strictly science based also must have an accompaning MSDS hard copy close to hand. This DOES include all glue/adhesives, soaps, cleaning products and...

If using an egg turner, set it inside the incubator. Before starting incubation, let the incubator run for at least three hours with a day being better. This insures that you have adjusted the temperature correctly, and it will stay constant enough. Once in the incubator, eggs need to be turned at l...

That's a shame you don't share the enthusiasm for our place of work. I'm the opposite. I'm a printer by trade and continue to work as a programmer/document controller in Sydney and have done so for 9 years while also working in schools - THAT's boring but the money is rather good. Started in Science...

Same here. Q stores sent us the brown 8mm tubing when clear was requested and yes we've had trouble with the rubber perishing very quickly as the gas inside seems to dry/chill the rubber and make it brittle.

Our budget here has been reduced to $4500 for the year - some pretty fancy budgeting has had to be employed to cover most areas. All faculty's here are the same and all are complaining. Years K - 12 but 1200 in high school. How do we make do? Good question!

I have just received confirmation from the powers that be that I will not be attending the Data Logger course at Bankstown TAFE on the 26th June. The course was just too expensive for a single day and our data loggers too old for the course to be relevant! Unfortunantly that blows out the window of ...

I know the time has passed since you needed them but if I need to borrow equipment from surrounding schools, I go to the trouble of doing the kilometres myself as I'm already putting other school labbies out. Sounds odd to ask them to drop them off to you.

My god! What an awesome website. The teachers I showed stood there open mouthed, well worth a look.

They certainly like dry windy days, not much of that where your from! The Simpson Desert High School must get a cracking result!

Gumption! Yes the sink cleaner is designed for stainless steel and it is what we use on the dome of our Van De Graaf. Make sure you clean both inside and out for a great result. This combined with a tune - new belts, cleaned perspex tube and the combs cleaned and adjusted mircomillimeters from the b...

Thanks Ian, a soldering Iron works a treat as the fibre is very fine and any intense heat from a bunsen would destroy the end completley! We do have larger diameter fibre optic cable which I will heat polish with a bunsen flame!

How come your not being replaced if your away for 6 weeks straight? Here in NSW if you are away for over 10 days the Dept Of Ed pays for replacing you, under that the school foots the bill. Make sure they aren't using the funding to put another casual in the office or elsewhere - the money (if there...

The machines were ordered from Q stores letting them know that they were intended for a laboratory - hence the trays were substituted for regular kitchen ones. We use Finish powder and sometimes the powerball for heavy cleaning. I'm not sure of the volume of water they use but they're only used if a...

Mark my words, it WILL work!