Remote access technology in STEM education fills dual roles as an educational tool to deliver science education (Educational Technology) and as a means to teach about technology itself (Technology Education). A five-lesson sequence was introduced to 11 and 12-year-old students at an urban school. The lesson sequences were inquiry-based, hands-on,…

The Australian Curriculum: Science for Year 5 includes "recognising that the colour of an object depends on the properties of the object and the color of the light source". This article shows how much more can be done with color in the science laboratory. Activities include using a prism to explore white light, using a hand lens to…

The purpose of this experiment was to create a simple and inexpensive flame photometer to measure the concentration of sodium in beverages, such as Gatorade. We created a nebulizer using small tubing and sprayed the sample into the base of a Bunsen burner. Adjacent to the flame was a photodiode with a filter specific for the emission of the sodium…

A practical exercise for developing a simple cost-effective solar ultraviolet radiation dosimeter is presented for use by middle school science students. Specifically, this exercise investigates a series of experiments utilising the historical blue print reaction, combining ammonium iron citrate and potassium hexacyanoferrate to develop an…

A low-cost portable fluorimeter was constructed using a 360 nm LED for excitation and a silicon photodiode for detection. The instrument is simple to operate and has been used to investigate fluorescent whitening agents extracted from various brands of paper, to determine the linear range and limit of detection of quinine in various commercial…