Australia's Science Forum

As the person who originally needed help with this topic, I thought it was about time for an update. Our little frog has survived. I did take it home the last school holidays and it grew enormously under my care (no noisy classroom) and stable environment. I will take it home again these holidays an...

Students can too easily hide broken glassware, etc.. in draws and as such take no responsibility. If it is an accident, fine, but stupidity is not acceptable and the onus should be on the students. All equipment, other than bunsens, tripods, and other unbreakable items come from my prep. room. They ...

I am with Pamela on this one. Try a good toy shop. As someone with grandsons, this type of thing is around, it will just take time to find it.
Maree

Don't forget! Do not TRAIN the new person. If he/she is better than you to get the job, all that is needed is knowledge of storage (equipment and chemicals). And when I have had people taken over from me (LSL), I tell them to open every cupboard and sticky beak. That is the way to learn where things...

Try kerosene. It shoudl work.
Maree

Get Rid of it Lisa. ASAP if that is how you feel. Your Business Manager can take the responsibility. It is obviously not needed for practical work and as such, it would be 'bad housekeeping' to keep it around. Unnecessary chemicals equal unnecessary risk.
Maree

Fortunately, none of the previous has happened to me. My staff celan up all offal, etc unless I clearly state that I will do it. All I generally need to do it clean the dissecting equipment. It's the eyes that get me. Everything sticks to those sinewy black and white bits. As such, even the tiles co...

I hope you have better results from dealing with your union than I. I wrote to the Victorian union mainly responsible for my conditions on July 28th. I still not have had a reply! It is now August 19th. Hopefully someone is watching this and some action might occur. Interesting though is the conditi...

We have a couple of these at my school and there is little need now that the school has become a prep. to year 9 school. I'll keep one after the clean up, but because space is minimal in the new buildings for storage, I will probably sell any other excess equipment. It is a stunning piece of apparat...

Then for Health and Safety reasons, these books should be on a trolley, AT ALL TIMES. Not only is your health and safety important, but also that of the students. 'Tuffy' trolleys are ideal for this type of action and do not take up a great deal of space.
Maree

Dear Sue, I know it depends on how many books you have, and how many students these books have to serve AND how many rooms these books need to go to. We are a small school now, but one of the things we have done in the past is to have stand up metal cupboards in each room for the storage of such boo...

Hi Anne,
There are some people at the Melbourne Museum who care for stick insects and breed them there. They might be worth a phone call.
Maree

With the warmer weather coming up in Melbourne, our algae problem will become an even bigger if I do not get something started soon. Can I buy tadpoles?
Maree

Many of our goldfish are six inches long and getting longer!
Maree

Wouldn't the goldfish eat the tadpoles Richard?
Maree

Just got the information on 'golden perch' from google. I will not be putting them in my pond!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maree

Our pond at home is a reasonable size. Our pond is probably 4 times the size, perimeter wise, of one of those large plastic shells used by parents for sand. How much water does a golden perch need.? How big is it? Would a golden perch each my goldfish?
Maree

A little off the track. But can someone tell me of any fish, living in an outdoor pond, that could do the job of a sucking catfish. My outdoor pond has soooo much algae it would be heaven to a fish if I new of one. I also have some goldfish approximately 15cms ling. Can anyone help? Please????? Maree

We have both Lego Techniques and Lego Robotics. They are both valuable. Lego Techniques allows students to build simple to complicated machines. We have had our sets for 15+ years and they are still in excellent nick. We bought 13 complete sets and used one for spares. We would have 12 complete sets...

After all the information gathered on this forum I have sent an email to my union with regard to our new agreement. I have done this job for 30 years and it has changed quite a bit in that time. The responsibility has grown enormously and our technical knowledge has had to improve to keep up. We hav...