[katieokell]

Hey all,
I'm going to teach science in a school in Nepal this summer. I would loooove to run some science labs, but the school doesn't have many resources. From my understanding they have access to a few basic chemicals, but glassware is extremely limited.

Does anyone have any idea for science labs I could run? The students range from age 2-19 (JK-grade 10) but I'm looking for lab material for what would be equivalent to grade 8 for us.

I figured for younger students I could buy some markers and we could do 'chromatography' with paper towels and water to see the dyes separate. I also was planning on getting two similar sized but different weighted objects to drop simultaneously for a physics demo.

Does anyone have any other ideas for fun experiments/demos that don't require many resources? (I'll most likely have to buy everything myself and either bring it with me or attempt to find it there)

[InfoJunkie4Life]

Weigh gum, chew it, weigh it again... calculate sugar content.

Water, two electrodes (I Use Stainless Steel Silverware) battery, bottle baloon. Once it is filled, tie it off and light it on fire... cool little flash of flame.

One of my teachers set a glass of water on the counter, and dumped another on the floor to demonstrate how surface area affects evaporation.

Nails, lemons, light bulb.

I'll post more later...

[Unknown008]

Biology experiments?

You can try with osmosis in plants, I mean the effect of it, either it causes plasmolysis, or causes the cells to become turgid. That doesn't require much resources. Also, when using this in a stem, cut vertically along it's cross section, showing how the 'smooth' part of the stem changed in length compared with the outer 'hard' skin.

If you can have a microscope, having them look at some cells will be very interesting! :)

Show that plants produce oxygen. To do that, you'll need an aquatic plant to show it or another obvious method you can find.

Perhaps the starch test?

[Unknown008]

Weigh gum, chew it, weigh it again...calculate sugar content.

Water, two electrodes (I Use Stainless Steel Silverware) battery, bottle baloon. Once it is filled, tie it off and light it on fire...cool little flash of flame.

One of my teachers set a glass of water on the counter, and dumped another on the floor to demonstrate how surface area affects evaporation.

Nails, lemons, light bulb.

I'll post more later...

Sounds more like chemistry experiments to me...

[InfoJunkie4Life]

Yeah... or physics.

I forgot they were supposed to be bio based... I'll have to try harder.

[InfoJunkie4Life]

I KNOW!!

Seed Cups, and seeds in the baggies to document germination.

[InfoJunkie4Life]

Clip two of the same plants and put them in vases. Put water in one and sugar water in the other. Make sure they are well vented to assure the sugar doesn't ferment. This will show how glucose helps the plant because it is produced by the plant.

[katieokell]

Thanks guys, these are all awesome!
The experiments don't *have* to be biology based, but it'd be preferable.
No access to a microscope unfortunately. I would looove to do a cheek epithelial swab to show them how dirty their mouths are, or let them take swabs around the school and grow it on agar, but the resources just aren't there.

I was thinking of getting three similar plants and putting them in different environments (fan/wind, bag/moisture, and normal) to show them the effect of environmental conditions on water uptake, and rate of respiration (depending on how easily it fits with their curriculum... )

[InfoJunkie4Life]

I had a really cool teacher who used aluminum foil and a pull down projector to show how the eye worked. He covered all of the windows with the aluminum foil making the room pitch black. He then cut a dime size hole in in the window letting a small amount of light in. When he placed the projector panel near it, it actually showed up an upside down image of everything out the window. He had to fool with it a bit to get it into focus, and your eyes had to adjust to the low light, in order to be able to see what was on the panel.

He used this to demonstrate the eye. The hole being the iris, the panel being the retna. Neat little expirament.