• Question: what was your frist experiments you did ?

    Asked by anon-255212 to Chloe on 26 May 2020.
    • Photo: Chloe Carter

      Chloe Carter answered on 26 May 2020:

      My first experiment I remember as a child was using different magnifying glasses to burn my name into wood with my grandad. Then in my science GCSE’s and A Levels we had to plan and design our own experiments to do and write a report. For Chemistry I chose to look at Vitamin C concentration in Orange juice from concentrate and freshly squeezed. To do this I used tritation which is adding a known liquid to the orange juice until it was neutralised. For Physics I looked at the different tensile strengths of chocolate when it has been melted then rapidly cooled or frozen. In my Undergrad degree I used a river basin flume to investigate how Engineered Log Jams (ELJs) changed sediment deposition and erosion in a model river of the South Fork Nooksack River in WA, USA.
      What experiments have you done?

Comments

  • Photo: Brian

    Brian commented on :

    Hi – one of the first experiments I did was looking at ink and separating it on paper. basically place some water soluble ink in a line at one end (something like a marker pen is a good one to use) and then hold the paper up and dip the bottom of it in water – after a while the water will soak up and then move the ink along – different parts of the ink move at different speeds so they separate.
    This is the basis of what we call chromatography and it is widely used in environmental testing and in forensics. I went on to study different types of chromatography at university and I use the results of chromatography everyday at work to help protect people.
    Try getting different coulurs and seeing how they separate and seeing what they are made of – you could try different brands as well to see if they are different

  • Photo: Steve

    Steve commented on :

    My first field work was when I was working in the Antarctic. My first job having just graduated as a surveyor.

    In parts of Antarctica, the glaciers can be over a mile deep. My job was to travel over these glaciers and ‘map’ the shape of the mountains and valleys over a mile below me.

  • Photo: Gareth

    Gareth commented on :

    The 1st experiment I remember carrying out was peeling onions at primary school to look at the cell structure of the membrane that is between each layer under a microscope!

  • Photo: Jon

    Jon commented on :

    The earliest experiment that I remember was at the age of 5, in primary school. We put slices of tomatoes in a dish and watched mould grow on them over several weeks. It was gross!

  • Photo: Emily

    Emily commented on :

    The first experiment I can remember at prep school was covering our ears with different materials, and seeing how well they blocked the sound of an alarm clock. I can’t remember my first experiment at secondary school, but I do know the first experiment I did at university — an acid-base and a redox titration. I teach that experiment to first years now!

  • sophiesteward commented on :

    One of my first experiments was looking at how effective different hand soaps are for getting rid of bacteria. Our group all washed our hands and we chose which soap to use, we used 3 different types, we took a sample of our hands before washing, and after washing, a week later we looked at the bacteria culture to see how how much it had grown, and comparing our microflora before and after washing to see how effective the soap was we used, the most effective was the sanitiser we used the labs already.