Science TNT

School science laboratories seem to always be designed by accountants. They are generally poorly laid out and ill-equipped to serve their purpose.I have taught in many of these disasters and have designed other labs that have been a pleasure to teach in.

It would be nice if price was not a constraining factor in all school building design, but it is.The best way to approach the design of your lab is from the stand-point of what you need, then pare it down if the total cost is over-budget.

A school laboratory is usually larger than the average classroom. This is because it may have 35 students moving around it, flames from Bunsen burners, sinks, electrical equipment and glassware all at the same time, as well as writing materials, computers and boards. The whole setup sounds impossible.

Ideally you need to separate student writing areas from student experimental areas. The easiest way to do this is to have sinks, electrical outlets and workbenches around the three sides of the room. Cupboards for glassware and electrical equipment will slot underneath these workbenches. There needs to be a clear walkway all around the room in front of these workbenches, so that students can move about safely. The fouth side of the room will be where the board and teacher’s bench are.

You will need fume hoods, or fume cupboards, with extraction facilities to the outside. School fume hoods are not used very often, because the chemicals used in school labs are not aprticularly noxious. Fume hoods are best situated on the wall with the board and the teacher’s area. Using a fume hood with a class is largely impractical because of the logistics issues involved with 35 students wanting to use one or two small spaces at the same time. These areas will be used infrequently and only briefly.

You will also need desks or benches for students to sit at to write at and for non-practical lessons. These workbenches will are best situated about five feet away from the perimeter work benches. The exact arrangement of these workspaces will depend on the dimensions of your laboratory.

A fan arrangement works well, with the desks end on to where the taecher stands. Other possibilities include joined groups of desks and desks tee-ed off the teacher’s desk. Groups of desks make for more chatter amongst your students.

If you are installing an LCD projector, then consider mounting it from the ceiling where it projects to the board at the front.

That gives you your perfect school laboratory. You will almost certainly be overbudget at this point. How can you reduce the cost?

* Cut the number of sinks – A large cost saving, but disastrous in terms of increasing student movement during experimental work. Consider long sinks at the back of the worktop though.
* Cut the number of electrical outlets – Small savings
* Cut the number of cupboards – Large savings possible, but increases student movement around the laboratory, and where do you put all the equipment?
* Have just one fume-hood – Large savings, and you will rarely use it anyway.

As someone who has witnessed the amazing changes in custom software development over the past 25 years, I have seen the vast improvements that both the Art and the Science of technology have experienced. While they once stood independently, those two principles have definitely converged. Personally, though I have been in the development world for a while, I am still amazed at the level of creativity, technology and change that we see every year. Could anyone 20 years ago have pictured the capabilities of Silverlights Deep Zoom? Or Flashs level of glossy interactivity?

One of Amadeus Consultings Guiding Principles is to Develop great software with both science and art,” because we feel so strongly that these two software development factors converge to make the most successful and inspiring technology for our clients. To us, science means how you use something, and art is not only how something looks, but how you interact and think about something.

Lets walk a little bit through the history of the two principles and see how they have finally come together to form and create the tools, Websites, and software we all use every day and at Amadeus Consulting.

We have Science, but wheres the Art?

The time was 30 B.C. (Before Creativity) also known as the eighties, most people associate with the time of DOS and very minimalistic looking user interfaces, simplistic inputs and structure, structure, structure.

When COBOL was the primary development language, there really was not much of an Art to any of it, computers simply had not been thought of as a medium for wild creativity. Sure there were games, and word processing programs, but the design was pretty flat, very text driven. The only real artistic consideration was the background color, which certainly felt exciting at the time. I even remember my go-to method for text placement, counting pixels! (Can you imagine asking anyone to do that day-to-day now?)

Art + Science, working side-by-side

Fast-forward to 15 years ago or 15 A.D. (After Design). With the introduction of HTML 1.0, customization and art were starting to trickle into custom application programming, allowing people to not only choose background colors, but different fonts, font colors and even pictures. The science and art of software programming were working side-by-side, and often as is the case with tricky technology, against one another.

As this was the Web 1.0 phase of the Internet, the level of interactivity from a user standpoint was zero. If you lacked the technical skills to be a custom programmer, you interacted with the Internet in a very static and read-only way. One of the difficulties I remember having is getting photo and text to line up with one another. Because the tools for text input were far more developed than for graphical input, getting a photo in the right place required a lot of trial and error.

The Marriage of Art + Science

There are a lot of different colleges which offer to earn the associate degrees in various fields. In this article we should mention one of them in which you can earn the associate of applied science degree. This college is called The College of Southern Idaho. This college is situated in the state of Idaho in Twin Falls. This institution is a public college in which you have to study for two years to receive your associate degree. The college offers an associates degree in main fields and provides a lot of programs. One of such programs which can be completed is an Associates in Science Degree in Horse Management. During this program students are prepared to work in the all aspects of the equine industry and cope with all the work which is needed while taking care of horses. Also it will prepare students to be ready for the management of their own horses. Besides they will be given all the instructions about difficulties in their behavior.

While studying at this college on the department of Horse Management Students will have a lot of courses and subjects. They have to complete several basic classes. Actually they are as follows:

– The Classes of Fundamentals of Oral Communication (these classes are provided for learning the language which will help students to speak with their animals. There will be given instructions how to speak with them, what to say, in what way and with what intonation)

– The Classes of English Composition (these classes are studied for learning the English and the right composition of words and sentences)

– General Math Courses (it is the general course which is required to study general rules and tasks in mathematics)

– General Social Science Courses (these courses provide the general knowledge in social sciences. Here it is given the basic information about different sciences and their general tasks and investigations)

Actually above mentioned courses are the general ones and to be more skillful and developed in this field you have to be able to attend some more specific courses in the equine industry. There courses will give you more knowledge and you will become more experienced. Some of such classes which students have to complete are as follows:

– Classes of Equine Nutrition During these courses students will have an opportunity to be given the information about the anatomy and physiology of horses. This will include the structure of the digestive system of the animals, the abilities of this system, the way in which the system digests and accepts the food. What food is accepted by the system of digestion. Also you will be given the information about different diseases and complications of the digestive system of the horses. Besides you will be taught about the ability of the organism to metabolism.

– Study of Equine Reproduction This course will provide the students with the information about the reproductive system of the animals. During this course students will study the reproductive organs of horses, their ability for reproduction. Also they will study their hormone control which guarantees the successful reproductive efficacy. Also you will be informed about various diseases of the reproductive system and the way of treatment which will be needed. Besides there will be given some useful information about the processes of reproductive failure, artificial insemination and embryo transfer which are available for these animals.

Skin rejuvenation can be confusing to even the most informed patients, and understanding how directed and combination therapies act to deliver results, is crucial. In general, the degree of effect is directly related to the depth of penetration in the skin. Skin can be divided into three layers, the epidermis, constituting the outer layer, and the dermis, the inner two layers. Therapies are classified as superficial, medium, or deep based on their depth of penetration. The three most common treatment modalities used for skin rejuvenation are chemical peels, mechanical dermabrasion, and lasers. All three modalities can be used for superficial, medium, or deep rejuvenation.

Medical grade skin care products act to hydrate skin, increase exfoliation, build collagen, and treat skin discolorations and blemishes. Topical vitamin therapy is a common, minimally invasive therapy, of which, the most relevant to skin rejuvenation is tretinoin, a vitamin A derivative. It acts to rejuvenate, by thickening the epidermis and decreasing photoaging, including: dyschromias and brown spots, in the short term and increasing collagen production with a decrease in fine wrinkles with longer courses. Hydroquinone and Kojic acid are topical bleaching agents that inhibit melanin production: lightening age spots, imporoving melasma, as well as other causes of hyperpigmented blemishes.

Superficial rejuvenation primarily includes glycolic acid and jessner chemical peels and acts on the epidermis, decreasing discolorations and blemishes while allowing the germinal layer of the epidermis to regenerate. Additionally, they also act to increase superficial collagen formation in the dermis, improving fine wrinkles. Lasers can be used to perform “micropeels,” acting on the epidermis only, with benefits similar to the other superficial rejuvenation procedures.

Medium or deep rejuvenations act to the level of the dermis and are used to treat deeper photoaging and wrinkles. By increasing the depth of penetration, the overall effect is increased due to improved recruiting of fibroblast activity and collagen deposition. Consequently, there is also an increased risk of complications with deeper rejuvenations, which can include hypopigmentation and scarring, along with prolonged healing times. Medium and deep chemical peels include jessner/TCA peels and phenol peels, respectively. Dermabrasion is an effective resurfacing technique that uses mechanical abrasion to remove skin, layer by layer. Today, it is largely used for scar resurfacing/revision and the treatment of well formed wrinkles around the mouth. The depth of treatment with conventional lasers is primarily controlled by the type of laser used, the power settings, and the number of passes performed. In general, less aggressive settings and a decreased number of passes, result in less down time, a more superficial treatment, and subsequently less impressive results. In addition to the superficial rejuvenation benefits, the deeper rejuvenation procedures improve photoaging in the dermis along with deeper, more robust collagen deposition with more significant wrinkle reduction.

Fractionated laser therapy has been introduced to deliver results comparable with traditional laser therapy, but with decreased healing time. Fractional lasers work by treating a percentage of the skin surface area, usually between 5-30%, with spaced, deep penetrating, laser microcolumns that leave intact bridges of skin between the treated areas, thereby, decreasing the risk of complications associated with conventional full skin resurfacing techniques, while maintaining the deeper benefits. Thermal energy is delivered to the deeper dermal elements to trigger collagen formation, while treating the deeper photoaging dyschromias and brown spots, and allowing for faster recovery due to the intact bridging of skin. Today, the state of the art in laser resurfacing techniques combines conventional full skin resurfacing to remove the epidermis, improving the epidermal elements, followed by fractionated therapy to treat deeper photoaging and stimulate deeper collagen formation and wrinkle reduction.

Skin rejuvenation therapy must be tailored by the patients, not the physicians goals. Aggressive therapy can lengthen healing times and increase the risk of complications, but also have the best results. Maintenance therapy with medical grade skin care products and superficial rejuvenation agents, with interval medium to deep rejuvenation therapy is ideal for optimal outcomes. Skin resurfacing/rejuvenation should be viewed as complimentary, not a substitute for face lift surgery. The choice of resurfacing agents used to achieve the patients goal is collaborative and based on the comfort of the patient with the rejuvenation agent and the experience of the physician.

Equipping your school science lab with science laboratory equipment is no more a difficult task. You can conveniently shop for the lab equipment online these days. Just select the items that you need and make the payments. School science lab supplies will be delivered right at your doorstep. But there are some considerations that must be kept in mind while buying laboratory equipment supplies.

The first important consideration is to decide which all science lab supplies you need. This would primarily depend on the school curriculum and the experiments that would be conducted in the academic year. Every standard or class has got a unique curriculum and even within a particular standard, there are different science subjects for which specific science lab supplies are required. It would be better to make a list of physics lab experiments, biology lab experiments, anatomy lab experiments, environmental science lab experiments for different levels and then look out for the equipment unique to those experiments.

While there are many equipment that are unique to certain science projects, there are several items that you will find in every school science lab. Some of such science laboratory equipment are test tubes, beakers, flasks, pipettes, pipette bulbs, pipette fillers, funnels, evaporating dishes, watch glass, chemical spoons, stirring rods, Bunsen burners, lab safety goggles, gloves, microscopes, and lab coats among many others. You must buy such lab supplies as they would be required every now and then.

Next, you must decide how much to buy. When buying science laboratory equipment you must take into account the number of children in each class or those who will be attending the science lab experiment. It is advisable that you buy enough supplies so that no more than two or three students use a single set of science laboratory equipment. By having enough beakers, funnels, test tubes, and other laboratory equipment supplies you can ensure that no time is wasted in washing and re using the equipment and that the students are able to make the best possible use of the limited time allotted for physics lab experiments and biology lab experiments.

Finally, make sure that the biology lab equipment or other laboratory equipment supplies that you buy are manufactured keeping in mind the highest safety standards. They should be extremely safe to use and should not break or explode due to heating or chemical reactions.

For buying superior quality laboratory equipment supplies, you can log on to sciencefirst.com