Thursty Thirsday's Real Blog

Needless to say Thirsty Thursday was a real blast. This morning we had some excellent demos. Plate tectonics and the giant water bottle explosion. Was a super way to some positive movement through the days activities. We did an exothermic and two endothermic reactions to be followed by a couple small explosions. By blowing these things up it created a windy environment for this afternoon's lab working with the mini wind generators. It got very competitive worse than the kids. It was interesting and fun to see the creativity and technology cross for end products. I already have a wind energy unit planned for next year and am already looking forward to it. I have done the exothermic and endothermic reactions in the past and still plan on doing them. I do tend to steer away from some of the mini explosions with ethanol for personal reasons but do have the kids do a unit on the making and testing of bio diesel over three 90 minute block class periods. They love this lab because many are from farm backgrounds and want to test and compared. We have gotten as high as 90% purity based on acetate chromatography. We do burn it but it doesn't explode. What a great day and week. Thanks to all the staff and students. Darwin