Australia's Science Forum

Thank you to everyone who replied to my question yesterday.

Is the Man Dingo experiment banned in schools (or elephant poo experiment)???

Lots of you still do it, but some are saying they dont.

We have two teachers here who are disagreeing over whether this experiment is permitted or not.

Please help. This experiment involves sugar and concentrated sulphuric acid.

So.........does anyone know, is it banned or allowed in schools??

We still do it, in the fume cupboard, and it is mentioned in CSIS that it can be done on a very small scale by senior students, even though the acid has a red dot.

we do it - outside. make sure the kids are not downwind of it and plenty of distance.

it still gets done in my school, usually with year 7 for a wow factor thing

We do it in the fume cupboard for Seniors only
Cheers

This experiment is done as a demonstration at my school with year 12 Chemistry students to demontrate the dehydration of sugar.

But I think it should be banned due to the mess UG

Is this the carbon pillar? If it is we do it too as a demo for the year 12 chem students, in fact I did it last week!

We do it as a demo, student use would depend on the colour code dot for the sulfuric acid concentration used, greater than 10M teacher only, 4M to less than 10M year 11-12 so according to CSIS at that molarity ok but Id say at teachers discretion, they know their students.....and definately in a fume cupboard MariaC

No its not banned. Just take the appropriate precautions, do the proper RA and do it outside or in fume cupboard.

Our previous HoD banned it, but it depends on the scale. Some gung-ho teachers use half a kg of sugar which even done outside, leaves you with a steaming black pile that's giving off SO3 fumes which is a hazard, especially for asthmatics. We now do it on a small scale in fume cabinet.