Lab Out Loud » chemistry

Episode 79 – Vernier’s Game-Changer

Brian — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 05:30:07 +0000

David Vernier

Our guest this week is the co-founder of Vernier Software & Technology, David Vernier. David talks to us about the history of the company, his popular software and data collection hardware, and the release of two new products that are part of Vernier’s Connected Science System – the LabQuest2 and Graphical Analysis iOS app.

Links:

To listen to this episode, download the mp3 directly, find us on iTunes, or use the player below.

Episode 78 – “Hunting the Elements” and other resources from NOVA

Brian — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 05:30:29 +0000

Rachel Connolly

In anticipation of NOVA’s upcoming “Hunting the Elements” special and app, we got in touch with Rachel Connolly – NOVA’s Director of Education. Rachel talks to us about the show and its accompanying app, NOVA’s Hunting the Elements periodic tweets, and other resources from NOVA. Listen to the show and watch “Hunting the Elements”, airing 4/4/12 on PBS.

Links:

Watch Hunting the Elements Promo on PBS. See more from NOVA.

To listen to this episode, download the mp3 directly, find us on iTunes, or use the player below.

Lab Out Loud is Changing!

Dale — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 07:30:54 +0000

For almost three and a half years, Lab Out Loud has been providing shows that discuss science news and science education by interviewing leading scientists, researchers, science writers and other important figures in the field. However, we have always wrestled with the fact that we were not being true to the title of our show.

Many of our listeners have felt the same. One commenter wrote:

For a show called Lab Out Loud, why don’t we ever hear the sounds of lab?

We admit that our critics are right. While many of our guests work in a laboratory environment, our show has failed to bring you to their lab.

Quite frankly, we were lazy; we have relied on the voices of people instead of the symphony of tools and facilities that are really doing the science.

Well, the charade is over. Today, we are proud to announce that Lab Out Loud is moving to where it belongs – the laboratory. From this point on, Lab Out Loud will no longer do interviews but focus on the sounds of the lab instead.

Fun With Chemistry by jemsweb, on Flickr

Each episode will showcase a specific field of science. Today we start with the Soundtrack of the Chemistry Lab. Listeners can interact with the show by identifying their favor sounds in the comments. Was that a buret or a pipet? Only the trained ear can tell!

Direct download: LOLv2-e1-chem.mp3

If chemistry is not your thing, don’t fret. You’ll be able to find harmony with one of our future episodes. Squishes and Scalpels will be up next for our biology fans followed by Sediment Drifts and Sifts for the geologists.

Got a favorite lab sound stirring in your head? Leave us a request in the comments. We’ll have it ready to play in a few weeks.

With your help we hope to finally turn up the dial on every laboratory so they can be enjoyed as intended – Out Loud!

Episode 56 – More Chemistry Videos from the PTOV

Dale — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 06:30:08 +0000

To kick off the International Year of Chemistry, we talk with Dr. Martyn Poliakoff and Dr. Samantha Tang from The Periodic Table of Videos. Having completed all videos for all 118 elements, the team is working on updating every element video, while adding other videos such as molecular videos and chemical definition videos. Drs. Poliakoff and Tang talk to us about upcoming events in the International Year of Chemistry and their work with Periodic Table of Videos

Periodic Table of Videos Team

Links:

Chem Definition Video: Polyatomic

The International Year of Chemistry 2011 (IYC 2011) is a worldwide celebration of the achievements of chemistry and its contributions to the well-being of humankind. Under the unifying theme “Chemistry—our life, our future,” IYC 2011 will offer a range of interactive, entertaining, and educational activities for all ages. The Year of Chemistry is intended to reach across the globe, with opportunities for public participation at the local, regional, and national level.

Direct download: LOL56.mp3

Episode 52 – Science We Can Read About

Brian — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 05:30:11 +0000

Sam Kean

This week we discuss our favorite science books and talk to author Sam Kean. Sam discusses the periodic table, scientific discovery and storytelling in his new book The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements.

What science books do you read? Join the conversation at laboutloud.com to share your favorite science books, and visit the NSTA Science Store for the latest NSTA Press books … and more.

Links:

Science Books We Read:

The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth’s Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Anil Ananthaswamy
Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely
The Windup Girl by Pablo Bacigalupi (SciFi)
The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire and Phosphorous by John Emsley
Sleepless by Charlie Huston (SciFi)
Icarus at the Edge of Time by Brian Greene
Creation by Randal Keynes
Napoleons Buttons: How 13 Molecules Changed History by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson)
Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman
The Smart Swarm: How Understanding Flocks, Schools, and Colonies Can Make Us Better at Communicating, Decision Making, and Getting Things Done by Peter Miller
Don’t Be Such a Scientist by Randy Olson
Anthill by E.O. Wilson

Direct download: LOL52.mp3

Episode 37 – Science Because We Can

Brian — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:15:32 +0000

Dr. Theo Gray

Our guest this week has some serious accolades that would make any geek proud: he has won an Ig Nobel prize (2002), been referenced in a Foxtrot comic, and owns the domain name periodictable.com. Dr. Theo Gray talks to us this week about his tables, science experiments and safety, Wolfram Alpha, and even answers some student questions.

Links:

Books:

Making Salt the Hard Way

Bacon: The Other White Heat

Direct download: LOL37.mp3

Episode 23 – The Periodic Table of Videos

Brian — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:16:31 +0000

Dr. Martyn Poliakoff

Our second international podcast brings us to the University of Nottingham, where The Periodic Table of Videos is hosted. An online periodic table that includes short videos about each element, the PTOV has been watched over 3.9 million times. Dr. Martyn Poliakoff, CBE – a research professor at the University of Nottingham – tells us about The Periodic Table of Videos, a project made possible with his team and video journalist Brady Haran.

periodicvideos.com
Visit the PTOV Channel on You Tube
Subscribe for free at www.youtube.com/periodicvideos or via rss.
Is You Tube blocked at your school? Try Use www.periodicvideos.com/nyt/.
Test Tube – Behind the Scenes in the World of Science

PTOV Intro

PTOV Trailer

PTOV Christmas Video

Direct download: LOL23.mp3

Episode 22 – When Good Chemicals Go Bad

Brian — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:16:26 +0000

In this episode, Maryann Suero and Ken Roy warn us of safety dangers lurking in schools – both in the science lab and beyond. Dr. Suero is the Children’s Health Program Manager for the EPA Region 5 (Midwest Region), and Ken Roy is the Director of Environmental Health and Safety for Glastonbury Public Schools in CT, the Safety Compliance Consultant for NSTA, and a safety columnist for the Science Teacher and for Science Scope.

SC3: Schools Chemical Cleanout Campaign
The Schools Chemical Cleanout Campaign (SC3) aims to ensure that all schools are free from hazards associated with mismanaged chemicals. SC3 gives K-12 schools information and tools to responsibly manage chemicals.

No More Methyl Something

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: laboutoud science)

OSHA Lab Standard and HazCom Standards websites:

Safety Links

For safety Issues in Schools – email NSTA’s Science Safety Compliance Consultant/Safety Columnist/Author: Dr. Ken Roy at Royk@glastonburyus.org

Direct download: LOL22.mp3

Subscribe to Flinn Safety Training Notes

Brian — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:32:10 +0000

Flinn Safety Training Notes

Each month, Flinn Scientific provides “Science Department Safety Training Notes”. This month’s notes are “Safety Guidelines for Chemical Demonstrations.”

From Flinn:

Chemical demonstrations can produce attention-grabbing results that dramatically illustrate chemistry in action–from making fountains of foam to creating kaleidoscopic colors, and generating flashes of fire. This month’s safety training reminds you that safety must always come first by providing important guidelines to consider before doing any chemical demonstration.

To receive Flinn’s Safety Training Notes, simply subscribe at www.flinnsci.com/contact_safety.asp.

Flinn also maintains an extensive MSDS database, with 2-page, printable Material Data Safety Sheets.

Episode 17 – Sir Harold Kroto on Science Education

Brian — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 06:16:11 +0000

Sir Harold Kroto

To open our second season, we talked with Sir Harold Kroto. Kroto won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 (along with Curl and Smalley) for the discovery of fullerenes. He talks to us about a loss of hands-on experiences in our world, how to reform science education, and offers a new resource for science (and other) educators.

Links:

This episode is sponsored by Frey Scientific

Preview from the Show:

Kroto: I think it’s clear that science education is not in great shape. If we look at the way in which the number of kids going in to science has not increased sufficiently, and we have massive technical problems to solve for survival and sustainability, and so we have to use all the tools at our disposal. And the new one, the internet, which has hardly started, and it seems to me that one way of using it effectively, would be to create a global cache of educational materials that teachers anywhere in the world can actually download.

Kroto: Our world is now full of technology which is almost impossible to get your hands on, or if you want to understand it, it’s very difficult for young kids to understand it…. I think people haven’t fully appreciated that my generation, and generations before, learned how the world worked by breaking it up and taking it to pieces and trying to put it back together again.

Dale: What advice do you have for [science teachers] to reform, or jumpstart science education?

Kroto: Well, it’s a massive problem, because it’s not just the teachers, it’s what the kids do themselves. I don’t know how to solve it really, because the world in which I was immersed was the world in which I was immersed, and it was a hands-on one. When the telephone didn’t work, I went inside it – and the bell wasn’t running or something…. But now if the television set doesn’t work – it’s obsolete. That presents a massive problem for the science teacher, and engineering and technology teachers. It needs really development of hands-on skills. And the problem is that modern kids are so subjected to immediate gratification, they don’t have the patience to go through rigmarole that I did.

Kroto: We’re now in a highly technical world, with many people in influential positions – in politics, in law, in journalism – who know nothing whatsoever about science. And yet, they’re making decisions on science, they’re talking about science, they don’t understand science. All they know about science is what is the use of it? They are not interested in the culture itself. They don’t go to a poet and ask “what’s the use of your poetry?” They don’t go to a writer and ask “what’s the use of it?” They can see, because they’re used to that culture, and see the essence of Shakespeare, or whatever the language. In our case, on average, people who are non-scientists just look at the scientific progression as a bunch of people who produce some useful technology. But they don’t think of us as a culture, which is what we are. And in fact, I would say, one of the most important cultures, because we are based on a very important philosophy, which is doubt, and to question everything, and to not accept dogma unjustified by experiment.

Brian: You are actually starting a new tool that is going to try to help teachers get a little bit firmer foundation on what they’re doing, and give them some resources. Could you tell us a little bit about that before you go?

Kroto: The new technology out there allows us to see a person teaching, together with the teaching material. And so what we are doing, in Florida State, is setting up what we call GEOSET – Global Education Outreach for Science, Engineering and Technology. And math as well, and other things… so it’s not just restricted to the sciences. There are two screens, one with the video, so it’s like YouTube, and the second screen is almost like Wikipedia, but it’s downloadable. In fact, PowerPoint is what most presenters use.

Direct download: LOL17.mp3