• Question: did you ever make a chemical explosion in secondary school?

    Asked by Emjay_xox to Chris, Joanne, Kathryn, Kieran, Sarah on 6 Nov 2017. This question was also asked by 969furk29.
    • Photo: Sarah Guerin

      Sarah Guerin answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      We did small explosions in Junior Cert science labs- your teacher puts elements in water and they act like little fireworks in a bowl. Nowadays I do ‘chemical explosions’ for public events- like the alka seltzer rocket- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPqEzdFlDOM

    • Photo: Chris Werner

      Chris Werner answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      Aside from the sodium and potassium whizzing around like Sarah was saying…myself no, my classmate yes! Can’t remember exactly what the experiment was, it was leaving cert chemistry, and the other side of the lab. We needed the fire extinguisher and were evacuated out of the classroom. The student in question got in serious trouble as it was something he wasn’t supposed to be doing!

    • Photo: Joanne Duffy

      Joanne Duffy answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      No, but I did have the topper pop off a flask in first year of chemistry at university. I did not take chemistry after first year!

    • Photo: Kieran Fraser

      Kieran Fraser answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      I can’t remember any chemical explosions in my science class unfortunately.. slightly jealous of Sarah and Chris, who knows what kind of mad scientist I would have become with that kind of inspiration! Granted I only had chemistry classes up until Junior Cert!

    • Photo: Kathryn Schoenrock

      Kathryn Schoenrock answered on 7 Nov 2017:

      Yep- I had a great chemistry teacher! He did a demonstration once showing us how wax burnes, and floats on water. The flames must have been 10 feet high!

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