The Dangers of Being a Science Teacher

Today, I almost died. This is no exaggeration, not hyperbole, I'm not making a mountain out of a mole hill, I could have died. Here is a recap from the worst day at work I've ever experienced.

THE LAB FROM HELL... AT A CATHOLIC SCHOOL
The K Period Level 2 Chemistry class has been less than cooperative during the year. Many students do not listen when they are told to sit down, be quiet, do their work, take notes, or anything else that I ask of them. During lab period, this class has a real problem with staying at their individual lab stations and keeping any sense of order. Today, it reached a new level.

Today's lab was on Charles's Law. This gas law states that as the temperature increases, the volume of a gas will also increase. To demonstrate this law, the students were given two beakers (to be filled half way with water), a thermometer, and a micro pipette along with the instructions to set up the ring stand and Bunsen burner. They were to get the volume of the micro pipette by counting the number of water drops until it was empty. While this occurred, each group was to measure the temperature of the water. This temperature would be known as "room temperature." The instructions said to heat the other beaker until it was ten degrees above room temperature. After this, the bulb of the empty pipette would be placed in the heated water (allowing the volume of the gas to expand) and after this was submerged in the room temperature water. The water pulled inside the micro pipette would be the increase in volume at the new temperature. The instructions said to repeat this on a ten degree interval until the temperature was 50 degrees above room temperature. These instructions were in their lab binders as well as walked through, step by step by myself at the beginning of lab.

Problem 1: "The Thermometer is broken" - Many people think that listening to the teacher is an option at the beginning of lab. One group set up their Bunsen burner and beakers properly. They stuck the thermometer in the other beaker (which is supposed to be heated 10 degrees above room temperature). As I passed by them multiple times they weren't heating the water so I asked why. Dan said that their water was too warm and had to go down. Thinking they over heated it, i shrugged it off. I return and they still aren't heating. One claims, "I think the thermometer is broken..." This is a glass, alcohol thermometer, not a digital. It cannot be "broken." I look at their temperature and it reads 23 degrees, which is room temperature. They were trying to get the temperature of the water to 10 degrees because they thought instead of measuring the temperature of the water at room temperature, they would guess room temperature to be 0 degrees Celsius. For those of you who didn't pass high school chemistry, this is the temperature in which water freezes.

Problem 2: Micro Pipette Super Soakers - A big tool in this lab is the use of the micro pipette. This is a small, plastic dropper. The lab included sucking water into the pipette and counting the drops that came out. Water takes some time to heat so many kids got bored and anxious. This evolved into a "water gun" fight with the micro pipettes. The results included water everywhere in the lab, a girl's pants soaked at the bum, and water ALMOST hitting me from across the room (this was only learned after school when another student told me). I told the main culprit of this water gun fight to stop or I would mess up his experiment. He did not. I proceded to turn off his Bunsen burner and pour ice cold water into his hot water, dropping it 30 degrees and causing him to take another 20 minutes to heat the water back to its original temperature.

Problem 3: Physics Meets Chemistry - The same student that decided to start the pipette fight has a small accident towards the end of lab. Cleaning up, he did not remove the beaker (which was filled with 400+ mL of water) from the ring stand. In putting things away he hit the ring stand. The students will learn next year that force is transfered from his arm, to the ring stand, to the iron ring holding the beaker, to the beaker. This caused the beaker to fall. In the matter of seconds, the beaker hit the hard surface of the lab bench. Force was too much for the glass to handle, causing it to shatter. 400+ mL of water was dispersed across the lab bench along side more than twenty pieces of glass. Students are not allowed to clean up the glass, only the teacher. This would occupy the next 4 minutes of my life.

Problem 4: I could have died - One group was paying very little attention to their experiment. As a result of not being cautious near fire, one member of the group accidentally dislodged the Bunsen burner tubing from the burner and the gas faucet on the lab bench. Gas comes out from the faucet at a high velocity. In the split second that the burner was still lit, the gas came rushing out from the faucet, igniting. The flame shot out from the lab bench to a height approximately 3-4 ft from the lab bench. In that time I immediately turned around, proceeded to say "Jesus Christ" and went immediately to switch off the gas. Turning around, there was a person on a tour of the school standing at the door way, an added bonus. The best part of this is that if the gas was left on for even a second longer, the flame could have crept back into the gas line, into the gas reserve, creating an explosion. This group was again caught not paying attention to their experiment. With atleast two more readings to do, I informed them that they were done and proceded to pour their water down the drain.

The kids left this lab period saying it was "the coolest ever."

The Answer!: This class will no longer be doing labs. It is obvious that they cannot pay enough attention to being careful. From now on, I will demonstrate the lab during their 90 minute lab period. I will write the measurements on the board. They will use the remainder of the time to work on their labs in complete and utter silence. In three weeks, we were going to make ice cream.