deltaH
Dangerous source of unreferenced speculation
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Location: South Africa
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Picking a project for chem lab
I've read a few times on this forum about students in North America, I believe, who have to pick a chemistry lab project that doesn't contain too
hazardous chemicals and other risks.
It seems that many are enthusiatic about this and want to pick an exciting project topic, but also needs to meet approval (sometimes a frustrating
problem) and at the same time, work well.
So I want to point students in such a position to an EXCELLENT resource for this, it is a journal called the
Journal of Chemical Education
It is the official journal of the Division of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society.
I really cannot emphasise how truly magnificent this resource is for this purpose, just scanning though it, you will find thoroughly tried and tested
ideas for chemistry practicals in extremely well written articles.
Furthermore, you will impress your teacher when submitting a proposal/s based on this.
Not every article is a researched chem lab project article of course, but they are numerous.
I'd recommend browsing through recent editions for articles to stay current on trends in terms of what is considerd as acceptable reagents and risks
(this may be quiet different from ten years ago!).
[Edited on 26-4-2014 by deltaH]
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bismuthate
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That is awesome thanks. This could be a real help. I remember that when I tried to do my science fair this year my teacher said I couldn't do it
because it used HCl (or H2SO4 but that would just make matters worse  ) so I ended
up doing something that was kinda lame: I used calcium iodate in the briggs rauscher oscillating reaction which made my project, consequently,
impossible to explain to little kids who walk by and ask about our science fair (or any other kids that were my age at that). All in all that was a
pain because the project I was going to do was awesome .
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deltaH
Dangerous source of unreferenced speculation
Posts: 1663
Registered: 30-9-2013
Location: South Africa
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Mood: Heavily protonated
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Yeah and the great things is that it's also an excellent resource for really neat amateur experiments too, from the very basic, all the way through to
really advanced nanotechnology, like this one:
"Simple Syntheses of CdSe Quantum Dots"
Browsing through the journal gives me a great urge to become a chemistry teacher 
[Edited on 26-4-2014 by deltaH]
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MrHomeScientist
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A great source if you pay for access that is. I can only view the abstracts, which is of little use except getting an initial idea for further
googling, i guess. The quantum dot article sounded cool, but I was disappointed by the paywall. I think Nurdrage did a video on those some time ago.
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Magpie
lab constructor
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Mood: Chemistry: the subtle science.
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I live in a state that provides public access to the journals that are available to the universities and colleges in the state. Therefore, by going
to the university library I have access to all ACS journals online, as well as others. I encourage everyone to check to see if, by chance, this is
available to them. 
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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