Old science teacher, was he out of his mind?

DeCoR18

So was thinking back recently about an incident that happened when I was in school. The regular teacher was out and we managed to get some retired science teacher for the class.

Well anyway don't know how it happened but he ended up passing around a fairly large bowl of liquid mercury for the class to look at. Some people may not know but its incredibly dangerous especially the vapor from it.

I think we were in about 3rd year at the time, so picture a bunch of 3rd years passing around a bowl of mercury I'm fairly sure the class "messer" even put his ****ing finger in it.

We said it to the teacher when she came back after being out she looked extremely worried/angry and that was it, it was never spoken of again.

This can't be anything less than extreme negligence can it? Would be extremely interested in comments from people more knowledgable on just how much danger he put people in.

Check out this article to get an idea of how crazy this was.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/5762.php

DevilsBreath

Ye we had the same in our school. Rolled balls of it around our desks.

The teacher used to stick his hand in it to show it didn't stick lol.

Captain Darling

Was this science teacher a he-she?

The gender of the teacher changes half way through the story...

Rabies

DevilsBreath wrote: »

Ye we had the same in our school. Rolled balls of it around our desks.

The teacher used to stick his hand in it to show it didn't stick lol.

Its ok. He's dead now.

AnonoBoy

Did you go to school in Mayo?

I know a science teacher from there that used to do that.

wudangclan

Captain Darling wrote: »

Was this science teacher a he-she?

The gender in the title and story dont match up.

apparently sticking your finger in mercury will do that

DeCoR18

Captain Darling wrote: »

Was this science teacher a he-she?

The gender of the teacher changes half way through the story...

Our regular teacher was a she, the sub was a he.

ejmaztec

Rabies wrote: »

Its ok. He's dead now.

Freddie Mercury?

My name is URL

He was a maverick, there should be more like him!

DeCoR18

DevilsBreath wrote: »

Ye we had the same in our school. Rolled balls of it around our desks.

The teacher used to stick his hand in it to show it didn't stick lol.

I was wondering was this a normal demonstration! Can't believe others have done the same.

Busi_Girl08

Captain Darling wrote: »

Was this science teacher a he-she?

The gender of the teacher changes half way through the story...

I think "He" = the crazy retired teacher
"She" = the actual science teacher when they came back.

Hellrazer

Our old science teacher used to make chlorine gas regularly with no vented chamber to contain the stuff.More than once he had to evacuate a few classes

He also used to keep all his acids in squirty bottles--not a good considering we used to have "water fights" with them.

Oh yeah he also used to bur Magnesium on the counter top--seem to remember it burning right through it and the floor once.

Think most science teachers are a bit nuts in all honesty.

waraf

Yeah we had something similar. We did an experiment where we used to fill a big long glass tube with mercury (1 metre long I think) and then turn it upside down in a bowl of mercury causing a Torricellian Vacuum. We then had to measure the size of the vacuum to determine atmospheric pressure. All good stuff but highly dangerous. Haven't died yet though.

DeCoR18

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Did you go to school in Mayo?

I know a science teacher from there that used to do that.

No I'm not from Mayo.

dilallio

He stuck his finger in Mercury????

Wow. Maybe I'm living on a different planet but ur damn lucky he didn't stick it in Uranus :eek: :eek: :eek:

spurious

We had an old teacher who we thought was about 90, but was probably more like late 40s. She used to bring in mercury, give us the speech about how dangerous it was and warn us that our nails would fall off if we dipped them in it. So, sure enough, we all dipped our fingers in, waiting for the clattering of nails hitting the ground that never happened. Bah.

One day she was out and we got her fairly incompetent junior male colleague who dropped the mercury, sending it flying all over the floor. He was nearly in tears getting us to help scoop it back into the bowl. It only came up to about half the original level when we were finished. I'm sure it's still hiding in crevices in the lab floor, thirty years on.

Another day, mad old 90 yr old teacher brought in cow's lungs. Unfortunately it was late May, a Monday and she had left them in a cupboard over the weekend. The stench was hellish as she swung them round and sent the puerile smell in all directions. The room smelled gik for weeks.

Pop's Diner

dilallio wrote: »

He stuck his finger in Mercury????

Wow. Maybe I'm living on a different planet but ur damn lucky he didn't stick it in Uranus :eek: :eek: :eek:

Or in the case of Freddy you could achieve both in one motion.

DeCoR18

Looks like its actually not too dangerous unless the area isn't well ventilated which it wasn't but I'm sure there was a window or something open.

Wazdakka

Used to be common practice in schools to have a bit of a play with Mercury..

Consider yourself lucky.. My teacher back in the day wasnt allowed to give it to us

the_syco

Had a few mad treachers in Colaiste Chiarain, Leixlip. One of them, a small woman, was an excellent science teacher, and showed us a few crazy experiments, including taking magnasium out of the oil to show what happens when it comes in contact with oxygen (we were all looking at the opposite direction, at the time. She did a few other mad experiments, which kept us interested briefly.

Lollipops23

in our science class we were all looking at liquid mercury in a bowl and when one lad asked the teacher what would happen if he touched it, he replied :"your ear will realy hurt." we all look at him and ask "how's that?" his reply was "Because I'll clip you around the head." legend.

Degsy

Our science teacher set fire to a lump of phosphorous and plunges it into a bell jar of oxygen to demonstrate how it burns with a dense white smoke.
Yes..a dense white smoke called phosporous pentoxide that filled the lab and had us all running outside coughing.
I had headaches for days afterwards.

Oh The Humanity

meh.....we played with it to our hearts content, rolled it around in our hands and stole it too. Ate our lunches with the same hands.....whats supposed to happen?

Most of the girls were no strangers to gymslip pregnancys so I dont think it did us any damage.....mind you the offspring could be mutants...I dunno....

yurmothrintites

In 3rd year science once when the teacher left the room, we put a worm in the air tight, bell shaped, air pressure jars and pumped it until.....

Needless to say, the jar took some frantic cleaning.

AnonoBoy

Our old science teacher (who also did the spilling Mercury and getting pupils to pick it up) used to demonstrate distillation in class while he was making poitin.

Them were the days!

Degsy

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Our old science teacher (who also did the spilling Mercury and getting pupils to pick it up) used to demonstrate distillation in class while he was making poitin.

Them were the days!

I read the short story the "poitin maker" too.
Fail +

BrokenArrows

Degsy wrote: »

I read the short story the "poitin maker" too.
Fail +

maybe the teacher read the story too and decided to copy it.

fail -

Greenmachine

the_syco wrote: »

Had a few mad treachers in Colaiste Chiarain, Leixlip. One of them, a small woman, was an excellent science teacher, and showed us a few crazy experiments, including taking magnasium out of the oil to show what happens when it comes in contact with oxygen (we were all looking at the opposite direction, at the time. She did a few other mad experiments, which kept us interested briefly.

Yup remember a particular male teacher there with Rosy cheeks and thick glasses. He used to roll mercury around in his hands while telling us how really dangerous it was. One day for Chemistry classes he demonstated on the football field, how violently some elemnets reacted with water. One of the samples actually went airborn. Might have been sodium but I'm not sure. :eek:

Poor Uncle Tom

From the symtoms of mercury poisoning, I don't think it would be possible to tell if any 3rd year was affected, no difference from ordinary behaviour.

Shacklebolt

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Did you go to school in Mayo?

I know a science teacher from there that used to do that.

Was he a red-haired guy with glasses?

thelordofcheese

I'd like to take this moment to reitterate

Science is fucking awesome.

MarkR

Hmmm... I do recall setting alight the gas hose in my science class.

All science teachers should wear this on a t-shirt
http://imgs.xkcd.com/store/imgs/stand_back_square_0.png

nibble

Just to throw in some factual information, elemental mercury (the metallic silver kind) isn't really dangerous at all because it isn't readily absorbed. Salts of mercury on the other hand would be quite dangerous, only obviously so with constant exposure though.
It would be rather strange that mercury thermometers are so prevalent in school labs if it was that dangerous I think! Teachers like to use that one to scare students in to not breaking the things, I guess..

oppenheimer1

nibble wrote: »

Just to throw in some factual information, elemental mercury (the metallic silver kind) isn't really dangerous at all because it isn't readily absorbed. Salts of mercury on the other hand would be quite dangerous, only obviously so with constant exposure though.
It would be rather strange that mercury thermometers are so prevalent in school labs if it was that dangerous I think! Teachers like to use that one to scare students in to not breaking the things, I guess..

I don't think the vapours are that good for you. Our Science teacher used to have a large jar of liquid mercury to let us have a look at. He told us at the time he shouldn't really let us near it, but as long as we didn't inhale the vapours, or drop the jar, it would be ok. He used it to demonstrate, with a homemade apparatus, consisting of a live wire and a 100W lightbulb that liquid water was a poorer conductor of electricity, compared to liquid mercury.

Good times He used to tell us that the science experiments in the old curriculum were far more interesting/dargerous/explosive than what they were currently allowed do now. He lamented the fact that his students seemed less interested because of that.

Overflow

I had a similar experience back in my chemistry class in secondary school. Our teach was a bit of a nut and loved dangerous and explosive experiments, which i had no complaints about.

Anyway one day he was talking about the rehydration of sulphates, copper sulphate in particular and called me up for a demonstration. I had no clue what was about to happen. He put the copper sulphate powder in my hand and then dropped some water on to it, que an extreme heat reaction and my hand getting burnt, just mildly, i had a blister from it and it stung like fcuk for ages. He said it was only supposed to produce a mild heat reaction.

Heres a video of what im talking about, except i wasn't holding the substance in a bowl, it was in my feckin hand:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNUoCACRvbI

confusticated

Funny how chemistry always gets the nutters, ours was totally mad, but physics and biology were disappointingly boring...