Friday, May 25, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
A Penny for Your Lab
As many of you know a couple weeks ago the Royal Canadian Mint ceased production of the Canadian penny. Indeed, the Mint has announced that it will actively start collecting and melting existing pennies so that they will slowly be withdrawn from circulation. So that means that the pennies that are circulating now will make for an interesting study in statistics. Over the next few years we can expect pennies to become less common in our change and one could predict that American pennies should start to become a statistically more common part of our penny collections since the production of pennies will continue in the US,
The chemistry lab here at Crandall University has had active laboratory studies of the composition and distribution of Canadian pennies as part of their model for population studies and metal chemistry. We have collected penny hoards from students over the years to build up a penny library. Indeed, one year we had a student stagger in with a dishpan full of pennies that his family had collected over the years in a hallway dresser. None of the pennies we have collected pennies in the library have an exceptional worth but the library has a good sample for each year back to the 1930's and the oldest penny ever found in a submitted penny hoard was a 1908 American penny.
You can be part of this ongoing study.The current face value of the penny gives $ 4 /
kilo for a penny hoard and if you have a bucket ‘o pennies under your bed like
it says in the article we would be happy to pay you $ 4/ kilo for your hoard so we can have a good random collection of penny mint years. No need to roll them
‘cause I can count them by weighing.
For the purposes of the analysis it would also be best if it were a truly random penny hoard that has not had the old pennies or the American pennies removed since they are an important part of the number analysis. No donation too small or too large we are looking to build up a reserve of random pennies that will do us a few years.
The chemistry lab here at Crandall University has had active laboratory studies of the composition and distribution of Canadian pennies as part of their model for population studies and metal chemistry. We have collected penny hoards from students over the years to build up a penny library. Indeed, one year we had a student stagger in with a dishpan full of pennies that his family had collected over the years in a hallway dresser. None of the pennies we have collected pennies in the library have an exceptional worth but the library has a good sample for each year back to the 1930's and the oldest penny ever found in a submitted penny hoard was a 1908 American penny.
You can be part of this ongoing study.The current face value of the penny gives $ 4 /
kilo for a penny hoard and if you have a bucket ‘o pennies under your bed like
it says in the article we would be happy to pay you $ 4/ kilo for your hoard so we can have a good random collection of penny mint years. No need to roll them
‘cause I can count them by weighing.For the purposes of the analysis it would also be best if it were a truly random penny hoard that has not had the old pennies or the American pennies removed since they are an important part of the number analysis. No donation too small or too large we are looking to build up a reserve of random pennies that will do us a few years.
LabEx 2012 Getting Ready
We are getting ready for LabEx 2012 here at Crandall University. Just yesterday we got vials of paramecia, euglena and spyrogyra ... oh my! Last week we got our bucket of frogs (double injected for your viewing pleasure!) and Dr. Mel was dissolving pieces of meteorite in nitric acid to see if we could add an astrochemistry module to the metals lab (not so much ... yet).
We have worked out our schedule at it will be Biology labs in the morning and Chemistry labs in the afternoon. The way our schedules have worked out the start time for the Biology lab in the morning will be 8:30 AM and will run until 11:30 AM there will be a lunch break/tutorial time from 11:30 - 1:00 and then the Chemistry labs will run from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM. People coming from away will need to note that start time for the first Biology lab at 8:30 AM.
Our lab manuals have been set and this is the outline for the week of labs:
|
|
Biology
|
Chemistry
|
|
Wednesday
|
1-A]
Introduction to Microscopy
1-B] Cells |
1-A] Elements and Compounds: Smelting Copper
from Ore
1-B] Numbers and Significance 1-C] Density Analysis of Canadian Coins to Determine Metal 1-D] Determination of % Cu on Plated Coins |
|
Thursday
|
2-A]
Earthworm Dissection
2-B] Grasshopper Dissection |
2-A]DEMONSTRATION: Composition
of Air
2-B]Collection of a Gas
over water [CO2]
2-C]Acid-Base Titrations
2-D]DEMONSTRATION :
Potentiometric Acid-Base
Titrations
|
|
Friday
|
3-A] Frog
Dissection
|
3-A]Redox: The Reactions
of Metals with
Nitric Acid
3-B]Spectrophotometric
Determination of % metal in Coins
|
|
Monday
|
4-A]
Environmental Assessment
|
Environmental
Assessment of the CU Stream
|
|
Tuesday
|
Sample Analysis
and Report Writing
|
Sample Analysis
and Report Writing
|
Keep an eye on this blog as we get closer to LabEx for more exciting information.
Monday, February 27, 2012
LabEx 2012 First Announcement
|
The Science Faculty of Crandall University are pleased to announce that the planning of LabEx 2012 is now
underway. We have instructors for both the Chemistry and Biology laboratories
and have set the dates for the program (May 23, 24,25, 28 and 29). We intend
to offer five days of high school level laboratory sessions (three hour lab
in the morning and three hour lab in the afternoon each day). Admission is
limited to students 16 or older that have completed Biology and Chemistry to the
Grade 11 level (or by special permission of the coordinator). Space is
limited so early registration is recommended. For further information monitor
this website (which will be updated as plans are firmed up) or contact the coordinator directly
(Dr. Mel Schriver, mel.schriver@crandallu.ca) |
 |
|
2012
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