Has The Swine Flu Affected Your School?

November 16, 2009

tamiby: Tami O’Connor

Is the flu spreading like wildfire in your community? In my hometown of Redding, Connecticut, the high school’s homecoming dance and the Halloween parties at the elementary school were both canceled. The middle school social was also postponed until flu season is officially behind us.

What better time than now to teach your students about the benefits of proper hand washing techniques and how diseases are actually transmitted from one person to another? Educational Innovations carries a full line of products designed to help you educate your students about germ transmission and how best to reduce the spread of harmful microbes. Let Educational Innovations help you to keep your students more mindful of easy things they can do to stay healthy.

Glo Germ is a fantastic product which safely and graphically demonstrates to students and adults alike how germs are spread. Used throughout the United States in schools, hospitals and food services, Glo Germ consists of an odorless lotion or powder which glows brightly when exposed to ultraviolet light. This product is perfect for your health curriculum.

To demonstrate proper hand washing, simply have students rub Glo Germ lotion on their hands. This simulates the spread of thousands of tiny plastic fluorescent “germs” on their hands. Then ask each students to wash their hands as they normally would.  Finally, a fluorescent ultraviolet lamp may be used to spot the remaining “germs.” Under the lamp, the plastic “germs” fluoresce or glow brightly so that they may be easily seen by the student.

To use the powder to show how germs are spread through contact.  Simply shake a small amount of the powder into the palm of your hand and shake hands with several students. Use the ultraviolet lamp to demonstrate that you have transferred “germs” to them. Interestingly, you will also be able to see all the places the newly contaminated hands have been since the initial “germ” was transferred from the “infected” person.  Use the ultraviolet lamp to show where the students’ hands have been.  Take note how close to students’ eyes, ears, and noses the glowing powder is.  These openings are the gateways to their bodies.

The Glo Germ Classroom Kit contains a battery operated ultraviolet light, an 8 ounce bottle of lotion, and a 4 ounce bottle of powder. The ultraviolet light runs off of 4 “AA” batteries and is approximately 6 1/2 inches in length. This kit is excellent if you want mobility, since it does not require an electrical outlet.

Similar to the Classroom Kit, the Glo Germ Group Presentation Kit contains an 8 ounce bottle of lotion, and a 4 ounce bottle of powder. The ultraviolet light in this kit, however, is approximately 21 inches long and runs off regular house current. Very large! Very impressive! This kit is good for an extremely graphic demonstration of how germs are spread. (Ultraviolet light runs on standard North American line current, 110 volts 60 Hz)

The Glo Germ Lotion base comes in an 8 ounce bottle and is used to demonstrate proper hand washing. Each bottle is good for 75 to 100 applications.

The Glo Germ Powder comes in a 4 ounce container and is used to demonstrate proper surface cleaning as well as the spread of germs. Each bottle is good for many cleanings since only a small amount is used.

If your lessons could use a little light hearted humor with serious science implications, enlist the help of a cute and cuddly plush microbe to get your point across.  These germs are replicas of the not so cuddly real germs only they are about 1,000,000 times that of the actual germ.  Each microbe includes information on the individual germ and the ailments it causes. These plush germs work especially well when you sprinkle a small amount of Glo Germ powder on them and then pass them around to unsuspecting students….

Leave a Comment » | Biology, Elementary Level, Middle School Level | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Tami O'Connor

Chemistry of UV Detecting Beads

November 13, 2009

ronby: Ron Perkins

UV-sensitive beads contain pigments that change color when exposed to ultraviolet light from the sun or certain other UV sources. The electromagnetic radiation needed to affect change is between 360 and 300 nm in wavelength. This includes the high-energy part of UV Type A (400-320 nm) and the low energy part of UV Type B (320-280 nm). Long wave fluorescent type black lights work well; incandescent black lights and UV-C lamps will not change the color of the beads.

The dye molecules consist of two large, planar, conjugated systems that are orthogonal to one another. No resonance occurs between two orthogonal parts of a molecule. Imagine two planes at right angles to one another, connected by a carbon atom. When high energyuv651 UV light excites the central carbon atom, the two smaller planar conjugated parts form one large conjugated planar molecule. Initially neither of the two planar conjugated parts of the molecule is large enough to absorb visible light and the dye remains colorless. When excited with UV radiation, the resulting larger planar conjugated molecule absorbs certain wavelengths of visible light resulting in a color. The longer is the conjugated chain; the longer the wavelength of light absorbed by the molecule. By changing the size of the two conjugated sections of the molecule, different dye colors can be produced. Heat from the surroundings provides the activation energy needed to return the planar form of the molecule back to its lower energy orthogonal colorless structure.

Although UV light is needed to excite the molecule to form the high-energy planar structure, heat from the surroundings provides the activation energy to change the molecule back to its colorless structure. If colored beads are placed in liquid nitrogen, they will not have enough activation energy to return to the colorless form.

The UV detecting beads remain one of the least expensive qualitative UV detectors available today. They cycle back and forth thousands of times.

1 Comment | Chemistry, Energy, High School Level | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Tami O'Connor

Ammonite,The Fibonacci Fossil!

November 12, 2009

brandtby: Sara Brandt

Ammonite was once thought to be the petrified remains of snakes! Modern science, however, tells us that these fascinating fossils are actually the remains of an ancient aquatic mollusk.  A mollusk is an invertebrate with a soft, unsegmented body.  The soft body of an ammonite was protected by a hard outer shell. The shells of ammonites ranged from an inch to nine feet! Each shell is divided into many different chambers. The walls of each chamber are called septa. The septa were penetrated by the ammonite’s siphuncle, a tube-like structure that allowed the ammonite to control the air pressure inside its shell. Ammonites were aquatic creatures, and being able to control the air pressure inside their shells meant being able to control their buoyancy.

What is the Fibonacci sequence? The Fibonacci sequence is a list of numbers where every number is the sum of the previous two. The Fibonacci sequence starts at 1 and grows infinitely:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 …

To put this sequence into mathematical terms, each term Fn = Fn-1 + Fn-2. The Fibonacci sequence can be illustrated geometrically by drawing boxes. The first box should be 1×1, the second box 1×1, the third 2×2, the fourth 3×3, the fifth 5×5, the sixth 8×8, and so on. Each box should be adjacent to the boxes that come before it, forming a spiral of boxes. Have your students create their own Fibonacci squares – graph paper with small boxes works best.

What does ammonite have to do with Fibonacci? Ammonite shells are a naturally ammoniteoccurring example of the Fibonacci sequence. If you draw a quarter circle in each Fibonacci square, they connect to form an ever increasing spiral. Try to find the Fibonacci squares in your ammonite fossils – photocopy the fossil, then start at the very center by drawing two small boxes right next to each other. With Fibonaccimost fossils, the first boxes are .25 cm by .25 cm. Continue drawing boxes with Fibonacci dimensions. You’ll notice that the spiral of the shell always falls within the Fibonacci squares.

To further examine the concept of the Fibonacci number sequence in nature it is a worthwhile activity to have your students examine plants and flowers.  So many of them have leaf structures, petals, and stems that follow the series.  These spirals can be seen in everything from sunflowers to pine cones and even pineapples.

If your school doesn’t have access to ammonites, a field trip around the school grounds to identify the Fibonacci sequence in daisies, black-eyed susans, and seed heads would yield many oohs and aahs from your students.  The types of explorations are endless as examples of the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio are, indeed, endless!

Leave a Comment » | Biology, College Level, Earth Science, Elementary Level, Experiments, High School Level, Middle School Level | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Tami O'Connor

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