A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
Teacher here. I can explain this as: at any given time only about 1/2 the class is listening to instructions. I’m guessing that 4th period is a smaller class, but they did well because the teacher could better monitor what they were doing. I’d be willing to bet that 7th period is the largest class.
Half of the students in second period probably aren't even awake yet. I normally wasn't awake/functional until about 3-4th period. Half the time I would sleep through second period 😂
This whiteboard all by itself could be used as data that students need to be allowed more sleep.
There is certainly a case to be made for pushing school, especially high school, later in the day. And I agree, that would be better.
However, that's not necessarily going to fix the amount of sleep they're going to get. No matter when you have to wake up in the morning, some are going to look at it, say "okay, I can go to sleep at X time and get exactly 8 hours of sleep" and then stay up 1-3 hours past that.
Some places already pushed it. I started at 7 and my younger brother now, a decade later, starts at 9.
Our school did that, but ran into an issue that not everyone around us did the same. So students that were involved in after school sports would sometimes be leaving after 5th period (in an 8 period day) 2 or 3 days a week. They’d need to leave around 2/2:30 to get to a 4pm game and have time to warm up. That had a pretty negative effect on their academic performance.
I have bad insomnia so going to sleep before midnight in order to wake up at 6:30 am, in order to be at school by 7:20 was not fun at all.
Plot twist: 4th period was the teacher's prep period. The teacher burned themself while trying to work out how to keep students from burning themselves.
Assuming it's real, how could such a record be anywhere close to acceptable? I can't remember anyone injuring themselves throughout every lab project I had in high school and university.
Tbh these numbers dont surprise me much given my experiences as a lab coordinator. The highschool students were far far more prone to mistakes and accidents than the college students were and those were the gifted students. Theyd do stuff like leave broken glassware and glass shards in the dirty glassware bins for me to find. One tried to cause an explosion by turning the gas on for all the bunsen burners and walking out. (Instructor reprimanded for leaving them in the lab unattended, student was expelled) The point is I am not surprised by these numbers at all.
That sounds genuinely shocking to me, in what country? Do you not have supervisors for the high school students? At uni you shouldn't need much supervision, but for teenagers that's mandatory.
This was at a community college in the US. Instructors are supposed to be supervising them with lab coordinators supporting them. The lab that had the gas incident was downstairs and the student was left unattended or otherwise gained access to the lab after class. Hence the instructor's supervisor had a chat with them about not doing that. The biology lab coordinator responsible for those labs found the gas was on and had to shut off the gas.
As for the broken glass, theyd break something then throw it in the dirty glassware bin hoping no one would find out. Which is sad because students shouldnt be afraid of it being found out that they broke glassware on accident. Almost everyone breaks glassware on accident eventually. I just want that broken glassware to be dealt with correctly so I dont find out what they did when dealing with the dirty glassware after class.
I bet kids saw the chart and took it as a challenge.
Middle school science class. We were supposed to be boiling water over an alcohol burner. The kid across from me was getting frustrated because his wasn't boiling yet. I took a look, and it just looked a little off, so I asked him if he was sure he was boiling water. He gave me a strange look and said that he thought we were boiling the alcohol. Just as he said that, his whole setup went up in flames to the ceiling and all over the table. I'm pretty sure he lost some eyebrows and needed some new pants.
Who the fuck almost died in second period?
Worse thing that happened in my chemistry class is I accidentally spilled sulfuric acid on my hand and another student painted her face with silver nitrate and then got sent home for being in black face after it reacted to the sun. NGL, that one was funny as hell.
Must be the person who put hot glass under cold water and learned something about thermal differentials.
That's a great prank to do when someone is sleeping - they wouldn't know about it when looking in the mirror but then go outside and everyone is clutching their pearls
protip: hot glass looks the same as cold glass
Not always, but once it starts looking different we’ve moved past asking what degree the burn is and into “do you keep the appendage that touched it?”
If you went to the hospital in the back seat of a car? The glass looked room temperature.
Yep. I've told many people this.
I've also succumbed to confusing that schlenk connector that was just in a flame with the cold one.
2nd period goes hard
If you look at 7th period, it looks like someone erased a bunch of tally marks in Near Death Experiences. I'm wondering if they were downgraded to just burns as part of a cover up.
I wanna know about the near death experience!
The seventh period had at least 2 student dead.
Maybe even three!
Plot twist! 4th period only has one student.
Might also be the teacher wondering why there are so many injuries and doing the experiment himself.
To me this looks like early morning tiredness and afternoon tiredness, while 4th period is in the sweet spot, like maybe immediately after lunch
the teacher is the one doing the real lab experiment here
Jesus! The worst I ever had was in 9th grade biology I accidentally broke a couple test tubes. I couldn't imagine burning or cutting myself by accident or having a near death experience. 4th period would be my type of class because I wouldn't feel comfortable at all anywhere near the other periods if they're all getting injured.
I sort of managed a near death experience. Not actually life threatening but it was a good show. Basically same lab, trying to boil different clear liquids out of a solution. You do it once and record the plateaus, then do it again and switch tubes at each plateau to separate them. Well we started heating it the second time and it hit the first boiling temperature, but nothing was appearing in the condensing tube. It stayed that way for a minute or so, then the temp started going up past the first boiling point with nothing having actually boiled out. I turned to ask my teacher wtf was going on, then the rubber top with the tube in it exploded off the test tube and the resulting spray of gas/mist caught fire and created a huge fireball.
When I see this meme I always remember the glass rod I stuck in my thumb when we learned to do some basic lab glassmaking.
I suspect 7th period is not the teachers favorite class
I’m disappointed no one collected them all.
Don't worry, it isn't real. Why would they make the cuts column when there were no cuts until third period? And you can't figure the chart just started there, and they filled out the information from second, since the second period tally marks are in different color markers.
He could have set it up at the start of the class using information from past years.
The "near death experience" heading being messier supports this. I imagine this was the first time that happened, so he added that in the middle of class.
With a sigh he cleans the up the tally for the 7th period. "Can't call it near death anymore"
Early periods, kids are tired. Late periods, kids are distracted because freedom is near.
Early periods, kids are tired.
Maybe going to school at nine instead of 8 o clock would help, since most people are of owl (late) chronotype. Studies have shown, marks improve. There's neurological and genetical proof in science. But can't have that, since work and the world is run by the early birds.
Also, the blithe euphoria of lunch lasts less than an hour before the inescapable reality of your current situation creeps steadily back in.
Hot glass looks like cold glass.
I'd say it's the opposite. 4th period knows how to party responsibly
My theory:
4th period everyone just wants to go home so they get er done without horsin’ around
The other periods they have to be there anyways so lots of horsin’ round to make the time go by faster
Nah. Just that no one's apt to fuck around near lunchtime.
I guess some classes won’t learn how to heat stir sticks over a Bunsen burner to make glass spiral earrings and spiral rings. College Chem class allowed us to buy extra stir sticks and responsibly use our free time after labs were completed.