• Question: what was your favourite practical when you were younger

    Asked by chloe170800 to Carol, Ellie, John, Philip, Rebecca on 22 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by hunterlo01.
    • Photo: Carol White

      Carol White answered on 22 Jun 2012:


      I loved doing “flame tests” in Chemistry lessons!

      We put different compounds into a flame and then used the colour to work out what metals were in it. It was so exciting seeing the different colours, but with the extra puzzle of working out why!

      I can only remember potassium = purple, lithium = red, sodium = yellow and copper might have been blue!

    • Photo: Rebecca Lacey

      Rebecca Lacey answered on 25 Jun 2012:


      Hi chloe170800,

      I really enjoyed the practicals we did in A-level Biology with maggots and woodlice! Random, I know, but it was interesting to see their behaviour under different conditions. The boys in our group always used to squash them though, which was horrible :-s

    • Photo: John Welford

      John Welford answered on 25 Jun 2012:


      One that I remember really well is going out into the school playground to measure the speed of sound. We measured our distance from a wall and then fired a race start gun to make a loud bang. Then we timed how long the was between firing it and hearing the echo from the wall. Our results weren’t very accurate but they were about right!

      What’s your favourite experiment, and have you tried any of the ones we’ve mentioned?

    • Photo: Eleanor Turpin

      Eleanor Turpin answered on 26 Jun 2012:


      Hi chloe170800

      I liked dissection in biology. We cut up bulls’ hearts and I thought I would find it a bit icky but it was really interesting.

      I also liked A-level physics experiements where you can see the effects of quantum mechanics – such as a famous experiment called the double slit experiment where an electron seems to be in two places at the same time.

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