Lab Equipment

Today, we're going to look at lab equipment and some tools that you might use in the lab. You need to know what they are and how to use them. I'm just going to give you an overview today and when we get to our labs where we use this equipment while go over in more detail about that equipment. First thing is a beaker. Now you notice this beaker is usually made of glass or it could be made of plastic. It has a wide opening at the top and it has a flat bottom. So you can say to easily on a table or a lab bench. And then so you can actually see reactions in there. So you can see what's inside the beaker because it's glass. It's not really good at measuring precise amounts, but you can measure with this. Notice in this particular beaker is a 250 mL beaker, but it doesn't measure to 250 mL. It measures only 200. And it is in 50 mL increments. That means if you're going to measure something that's 10 mL, this is not be a good tool to use, all right? But it would be good to see reactions in this beaker or mixing things in it. Now, another thing that we would use for liquids is the test tube. A test tube is not flat bottomed has a curve bottom, and it is made of glass or plastic that you can see through. And it doesn't have increments on it, so you couldn't use it to measure liquids in. And if you're going to look at reaction to the liquid, need something to hold this. So you normally wouldn't hold a hot test tube with your hands, you'd use a test tube holder. But what if you want to compare to liquids you'd use a test tube like this was made of plastic. Now, they are have openings at the back just the size of certain test tubes. And then you can see reactions in this one. There's three test tubes in there to see the reaction in those test tubes. But when you're finished, you would need to clean your test tube and the spindles in the front are used to turn the test tube upside down and be able to let them dry. Now, another thing to hold liquids to be a flask. This particular one is called an erlenmeyer flask. And you notice it's a little bit different than a beaker because it has a narrow opening at the top and a wide base at the bottom. Now the narrow opening is to actually confine any kind of vapor or any kind of spatter that would be coming out with your heat it. And then also it would not be good for measuring because it has very large increments on it as well. Kind of like a beaker. But this is called an erlenmeyer flask. Now, if you want to measure exact amounts or precise amounts of liquid, you'd use what we call a graduate cylinder. The smaller the increments of the cylinder and the measurements, the more precise it is. So again, you would measure it and I don't know if you've had a graduate cylinders in middle school, but if it's a glass cylinder, it would usually have something called a meniscus on it. No, I'm not talking about what's in your knee. But I'm talking about a curved top, a layer of the water. When water is in a glass cylinder, it will actually be attracted to the size of the glass cylinder. It will form a curve at the top. And you would measure that at the bottom of the curve, not at the top of the curve. For precise measurements. Similar to that is called a burette. Now, I be red, looks like a graduate sunner, but it has an opening at both sides, right? And it's used for slowly measuring and adding liquids. Now, not only has an opening at the top, it has only at the bottom. And it has this particular tool and what we call a titration experiment. That's where we're adding small amounts of liquid to an experiment in a container. How do you do that? You turn the little valve at the bottom. Now, something very similar to this in hospitals is called an IB bag. When you're in the hospital, you may have to be given medicine through an IV. And they control the amount coming out of that IV bag with something very similar. And they're titrating the medicine into your body. But use for titration. Now, what if you need to increase the size of something, you'd use a magnifying glass. Now, this is a single lens management glass. And it's used in large an image. Something simmer this that we used to enlarge specimens is called a microscope. Now, microscope, this particular one is a compound like microscope. It uses two lenses, both the ocular lens, and the objective lens. We'll go into more detail when we use the microscope in the lab situation, about the different parts of the microscope. And the Microsoft, you wouldn't put a specimen right on the stage of the microscope, you'd put it on a microscope slide, and they're usually made of either glass or plastic, and if it's wet, you would use a cover slip in order to keep the lens of your microscope from getting contaminated. Those are Microsoft slides and cover slip they're used together. Now, another thing that we can use to transfer liquid is called a pipette or dropper. Again, you might have saw this when you're giving your pet or when your brother's sister is a medicine at home, they might use a dropper to do that. Again, it's using for transferring amounts of liquid. They're hard to measure with this because about the only thing you measure is a drop in other words. Then what if you need to heat something up? We do something called it butts and burner. And this is a gas burner and it's used in a lot of chemical chemistry labs in order to heat a specimen up or heat a liquid up. This particular one uses natural gas. There are some buns and burners used alcohol. Again, if you see the black tube coming from this month's a murder, it's speeding it from a gas line. So again, using it to heat a specimen or a liquid. So one of the things you have to do is you have to be able to actually like this burner, right? It doesn't stay lit. And you do that with what we call a striker. Now striker has a Flint in it and as you squeeze the handle together, it creates a spark. The spark is what lights the butts and burner. Now, what you don't want to do is not be able to find your striker after you turn your butts and burner on. So before you get your bunsen under to light it or turn it on, find your striker and so you can light it as soon as you turn it on. If you don't have the striker there, you will be letting gas in the room can cause an explosion. Also, if we are using glass where if we're using chemicals and also if we're using heat, we have to use safety glasses or goggles. The safety goggles are on the top and the safety glass on the bottom. Again, anytime we use glassware, heat or chemicals, we have to protect our eyes. Now, if you're stirring something in a baker or a neural Meyer, sometimes you need to have something in there to stir it. You wouldn't want to use a wood stick. One snakes are porous and they would absorb some of the liquid. Friends, if you was to have a glass of cherry Kool-Aid, and you started out with a wooden stick, you pull your Woods, they got, it would be actually red at the end, because it absorbs some liquid. To keep that from happening, use a glass material, and we call this a glass stirring rod. In other words, it doesn't react with a chemical in the beaker. Now, what if you're going to measure something, all right? Measure mass of something. Use what we call a triple beam balance. Now, we'll go in a lot more detail when we use this in lab. But it's triple beam because it has three beams in the middle of the balance. One side is where you put your specimen on. The other side of your balance is got an arrow or a line that you're trying to match up when it matches up together with the two on each side, then that your weight of your specimen. Now it has three veins because the first main measures single grams, the back beam on the very back measures tens of grams, and the middle and that's the heaviest weight on it. That measures hundreds of grams. And we'll do a lot more information about this when we use this in a lab. What if you're measuring length? We don't use a yardstick or a foot measure. What we did use is a major state. That's our management in science. So using the meters dig. So again, knowing your equipment in the lab is important because knowing how to use it will keep you safe and keep your partner safe and lab. Notice this cartoon here. One scientist is talking to the other one and says they just hate it when you carry the test tube that way. Notice he doesn't carry it correctly. He's got it behind his ear. We don't do that in the lab, right? So knowing your science equipment is important to keep you safe and keep everybody else in the lab say as well.