7/29/2019 Story Board for Vernier Probes and Sensor at BHS
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Story Board for Vernier Probes and Sensor at BHS
Do you remember that lab you did in Chemistry class when you had
to count
the drops of liquid that dropped into a solution until it turned
red? Nothing worse
than that, can you imagine your student having to do that in
2011? It is called atitration and the one solution still makes the
other red and you have to add it slowly
still. What has changed is that you no longer have to count the
drops; there is
actually a very accurate way to let a digital probe do the
counting for you. If
everything goes well, that equipment and more will be in science
labs at BHS.
This isnt just for manufacturers like AVX or up at IDEXX Labs
anymore.
Thanks to advances in technology, such things are relatively
inexpensive and
available for high schools. I am writing a grant to the National
Science Teacher
Association in conjunction with Vernier (the manufacturer) to
get these probes in at
BHS. We actually had a handful of similar probes in Mr. Cuttens
AP Physics lab,
which he shared with me in my physics lab and a few others. The
limited numberand type limited how many teachers could use them. If
this grant is accepted we
will substantially increase the number and type of probes we
will have.
You probably know that I have been working with Mr. Long and his
AP
Environmental Science class on a project at Rotary Park. His
class has been looking
at water quality coming from the old landfill there and trying
to determine if it is
having an impact on the recreational areas within the park or on
the adjacent Saco
River. This grant would provide some state of the art screening
devices and one lab
quality device thats only found at business listed above or the
university (a smaller,
simpler quantitative device yet very impressive).
We are all concerned with environmental issues that occur around
the park.
It should be noted that the facilities area is not impacted from
this study. However
the swimming is could be affected. The class is sharing the data
with the water
district.
The great part is this equipment has direct application in
Chemistry and
Biology classes. I can be used in many aspects of high school
science and even the
nursing program at the Technology Center. The grant also
includes handheld
devices to take most of the equipment directly to the park for
real time screen
rather than carrying water samples back to the school. These
handheld units allow
students to look at results immediately. This ensures that they
can use the data just
collected and avoid resampling.
These instruments closely resemble equipment used by many
businesses in
the community. Any manufacturing business has to monitor the
resources they use.
Both products going in and possible byproducts coming out of the
process have to
be monitored. This is an ideal application for this type of
equipment.
