I have not been much of a blogger because I am concentrating all my efforts on getting the new edition out before the end of the summer. The most important change I am doing is making many of the activities easier and more uniform in the amount of effort needed. I had to do this to deal with my new teaching situation. I am also trying to incorporate new activities and fix some glitches in some old activities. One significant glitch involves the use of thiosulfate to neutralize the toxic effects of bleach (Lab 3-4: Assessing Toxicant Remediation with Yeast). In some instances this has resulted in the production of hydrogen sulfide, which is not only smelly, but lethal to the yeast. I believe I can get around this problem by adding a buffer to prevent the acidic conditions that favor hydrogen sulfide production. I am also working on a lab involving short-term feed conversion so students have a better appreciation of biomass loss between trophic levels. In other news, the WHO has a new interactive site which unfortunately is very hard to navigate. Hopefully, I can still provide instructions for more ambitious students who want to make their WHO spreadsheets from scratch (Lab 2-5: Risk Factors and Health Outcomes in Africa). As for the first edition, I still have about 60 printed copies and 50 disk only copies. Since I think the new edition is much better, I will sell the old edition at cost.
This blog was originally created in January 2013 to serve as a means for providing updates on science activities from the environmental science lab manual Ecology, Development, and Sustainability. I have now expanded its purpose to include other items of interest to science teachers.