One of my chemistry students made drugs.
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One of my chemistry students made drugs. Aspirin, in this case. They confirmed they'd nailed it with a very accurate melting point measurement and then some thin layer chromatography. Yield was a little low, but hey, first go using high school kit. I made them a little souvenir, 0.06g of it in a tiny handmade phial.
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One of my chemistry students made drugs. Aspirin, in this case. They confirmed they'd nailed it with a very accurate melting point measurement and then some thin layer chromatography. Yield was a little low, but hey, first go using high school kit. I made them a little souvenir, 0.06g of it in a tiny handmade phial.
That's just under a quarter of a standard tablet, which are normally bulked out with lactose and chalk, student considered that in the TLC/chromatography tests. And as I'm not *giving* them a drug, merely packaging one they made themself, and they wrote a detailed risk assessment for the experiment including the end product, fair enough I think
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One of my chemistry students made drugs. Aspirin, in this case. They confirmed they'd nailed it with a very accurate melting point measurement and then some thin layer chromatography. Yield was a little low, but hey, first go using high school kit. I made them a little souvenir, 0.06g of it in a tiny handmade phial.
@_thegeoff This was one of my O-level projects back in the day - good to see it still has traction!
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@_thegeoff This was one of my O-level projects back in the day - good to see it still has traction!
@StriderLongshanks Not part of the curriculum, but one of the suggested Advanced Higher(~17/18yo) projects. Second time in 6 years I've seen it done, both times good students who got good results and asked me interesting questions. (I'm very much a uni technician at this point, we can discuss the practicalities of an expriment, but I can't guide them into how they do the project, makes for careful conversation at times!)
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@StriderLongshanks Not part of the curriculum, but one of the suggested Advanced Higher(~17/18yo) projects. Second time in 6 years I've seen it done, both times good students who got good results and asked me interesting questions. (I'm very much a uni technician at this point, we can discuss the practicalities of an expriment, but I can't guide them into how they do the project, makes for careful conversation at times!)
@_thegeoff I can imagine
e.g. it would be helpful if you didn't cause an explosion in the lab with some highly flammable evaporative solvents or poison your other class members with escaped gases from the laminar flow cupboard. Then again, perhaps these things have become slightly more difficult if there are restrictions on the types of reagents you can use today in a minor's education setting? Health and safety, etc? -
@_thegeoff I can imagine
e.g. it would be helpful if you didn't cause an explosion in the lab with some highly flammable evaporative solvents or poison your other class members with escaped gases from the laminar flow cupboard. Then again, perhaps these things have become slightly more difficult if there are restrictions on the types of reagents you can use today in a minor's education setting? Health and safety, etc?@StriderLongshanks Health and safety is a big one, as in they need to properly risk assess everything before I even give them reagents. They're almost always way too careful, which is good. Two interesting incidents in 6 years, both students saying "erm...can you double check this?", and both were right to do so. One with a sealed system that may have gone bang (safely, in a fume cupboard), the other nearly rediscovered nitrocellulose by the original accident.
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@StriderLongshanks Health and safety is a big one, as in they need to properly risk assess everything before I even give them reagents. They're almost always way too careful, which is good. Two interesting incidents in 6 years, both students saying "erm...can you double check this?", and both were right to do so. One with a sealed system that may have gone bang (safely, in a fume cupboard), the other nearly rediscovered nitrocellulose by the original accident.
@StriderLongshanks We only let them play with the "fun stuff" if we're confident they have the understanding to do it safely, and the confidence to come to me or one of the teachers if they mess up. I applaud anyone coming to me with a spillage etc as being exactly the right thing to do.
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@StriderLongshanks We only let them play with the "fun stuff" if we're confident they have the understanding to do it safely, and the confidence to come to me or one of the teachers if they mess up. I applaud anyone coming to me with a spillage etc as being exactly the right thing to do.
@StriderLongshanks this is 16+, usually 17 or 18 year old students in this context, working in their own lab. Very different rules for <16s.
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@StriderLongshanks this is 16+, usually 17 or 18 year old students in this context, working in their own lab. Very different rules for <16s.
@_thegeoff Still a good exercise though, I loved doing mine (had two different ones at the time, the 2nd being the extraction and quantification and differentiation of caffeine and theine), and learnt a lot from my setbacks too. Certainly confirmed my interest in it for further study, due in no small part to the teaching and support staff of the lab
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@_thegeoff Still a good exercise though, I loved doing mine (had two different ones at the time, the 2nd being the extraction and quantification and differentiation of caffeine and theine), and learnt a lot from my setbacks too. Certainly confirmed my interest in it for further study, due in no small part to the teaching and support staff of the lab
@StriderLongshanks Aww, shucks
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