Lab lesson reflections

Lab lesson reflections

In this past year we had a total of 18 lab sessions, listed as follow:
1P1: Getting to know the Science Laboratory
1P2: Hot Stuff with Flames
1P3: Observing and Recording Part 1
1P4: Observing and Recording Part 2
1P5: Pendulum Predictions
1P6: Measurement of Length
1P7: Determining Density
1P8: Brownian Motion
1P9: Elements, Compounds, and Mixtures
1P10: Formula Compounds
1P11: Which can dissolve more?
1P12: A Separation Problem
1P13: Who Wrote the Secret Message?
1P14: Inside of Cells
1P15: Bouncy Raw Egg with Moving Waters
1P16: Potato Bloating???
1P17: Extracting Chlorophyll
1P18: Artificial Small Intestines

I would like to talk about two sessions that I find very interesting.
The first experiment is about a separation problem.
There was a bowl of ingredients that we were supposed separate, the ingredients are iron filings, common salt, sand, and small Styrofoam beads.
We started out the experiment by placing a magnet above the bowl and attracting all the iron filings to it.
After all the iron filings are removed, water is poured into the bowl. The beads then float on the top of the water because of its low density and we could easily collect the beads.
Meanwhile, we can stir the water to ensure that all the salt are dissolved in it, and filter the suspension with filter paper. Sand is left behind and the solution that remains is saltwater. We extract the salt by crystallization (heating of salt water with Bunsen burner), and we collected all four the ingredients in the end.

Another experiment was about the "Bouncy Raw Egg with Moving Waters".
The experiment was about how to make a raw egg bouncy, it was relatively simple and fun at the same time. All you need to do is place the egg in vinegar for quite a while, wait until the eggshell is dissolved, and place it in water for some time. The egg will be bouncy like rubber soon.
Here's a video introducing to you the entire process:

We have a very capable teacher to guide us during the experiments, Mr. Sim.

Here is a video of him teaching at National Junior College. He is very nice and is great as a teacher:

Conclusion:
Overall I feel that lab lessons are very fun and challenging at the same time. 
Practicals usually required two-four students to form a group, and I find it a good chance to practice our teamwork abilities. 
When we complete experiments on our own, we usually get to memorize the results better as we found them out ourselves, this is a great way to learn and I hope that we could have more chances to have lab sessions in the near future.