Chemistry Experiments when you were at school

[Moctezuma]

So H&S culture had started to bite a little by the time I was in school so I only really got to see the lithium on water trick behind a big perspex screen.

 

My classmate once burnt off a mates eyebrows by letting a gas tap run too long and then setting light to it with another Bunsen burner. They grew back, but for a while after everyone used to try and draw surprised eyebrows on his forehead. We also used to pour hydrochloric acid over coins and pens and stuff to see how effectively they would melt. 

 

But this feels pretty tame in comparison to some of the experiment that bat shit chemistry teachers used to get up to, any tales?

[Tony Moanero]

Our Chemistry teacher was a right boring cunt, so my mate and I ignored his shit experiement and made a stink bomb. I snuck it out in a test tube and let it offer at dinner time whilst everyone was eating their food.

[Ezekiel 25:17]

My chemistry lesson involved burning roughly 14 splints in the bunsen burner, repeat each week.

[Captain Turdseye]

Once smoked a bong behind the sports hall at dinner time in the first year. Spent all of the next lesson with a dry mouth staring at a pigeon out of the window.

[memyselfandpie]

Ours was shit. I think the most 'silly' we got was holding loads of strips of magnesium together in scissors and putting those over a Bunsen burner. One of my mates got me good though, he held a penny over a Bunsen then put it on my Science book, bastard thing went through three quarters of it. The teacher never even mentioned it.

[sir roger]

One of our physics teachers had the stupid idea of having our class test our lung capacities by blowing into a u shaped tube half filled with liquid to see who could shift the liquid furthest. He obviously underestimated the competitiveness among young males and within the first 5 efforts we had one lad pass clean out on the floor & the last one do the same but crack his head on a bench prompting an ambulance being called & the teacher pleading with the lad to keep quiet about the experiment.

[Ne Moe Imya]

Two friends and I once broke into the science equipment room at school after reading about how gunpowder is made.  

 

We took a bunch of saltpeter and sulfur (I think?) and went back to try to make it in one of our rooms.  Mixed it up with some sugar, then tried to slowly melt it in a glass flask (also stolen from the same room) over a flame.  You can probably guess how it ended up - with the "slow melt" suddenly transformed into "massive flame explosion" when we overheated it.  Mate whose room it was' mom was NOT happy.

[Jenson]

My mate once eat about 3 castor oil seeds in biology (God knows why) and luckily he told the teacher as unbeknown to any of us, castor oil seeds contain ricin and are highly poisonous. He had to be rushed to hospital to have his stomach pumped and then force fed a shed load of charcoal.

[Dr Nowt]

My favourite was when you used to put a key in the upper point and another in one of the lower points of a science classroom plug socket, and then switch it on so all the electricity in the class went off, because they always had an extra safety switch built-in.

 

We would always wait until the teacher had started a video playing or the like for maximum disruption, and ringleading that sort of idiocy is one of the chief reasons why I remain a halfwit into middle age.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

Chemistry lessons in the 70's were fucking shite. 

 

I remember one incident though where we were using lead in an experiment. Not the best fucking idea our Chemistry teacher ever had though, some tart spilt water in the conical flask and it erupted giving her and 3 of her mates 3rd degree burns all over their faces, the lads shouldn't have laughed, but we did. 

[Paul]

We used to set fire to shaped pieces of magnesium ribbon to burn LFC into the lab benches. Also liked chucking (can't remember which "ium" it is) lithium into water and watching the ensuing mayhem. Gas tap into sink of water & fairy liquid, getting the bubbles on your hands and then lighting them was boss too.

[Alan Sex]

Rolling mercury around in your hand was always fun.

 

It was also what was I saying?

[Edward.]

Used to inhale carbon tetrachloride off our blazer sleeves and fire ethanol through teat pipettes through a Bunsen burner across the classroom. Set the chemistry teachers jacket on fire. He was actually a decent bloke and put up with loads of shit had polio as a kid, had to throw is arm onto the bench to tell the time. Looked like he had a really heavy watch.

[Kant]

I remember our chemistry teacher doing that potassium in water thing.

We all egged him on, putting in bigger and bigger pieces until one overly-massive chunk exploded across the room, leaving purple trails everywhere in the air.

I still remember the expression on his face; he definitely thought he'd maimed someone. Apart from burning holes in a couple of pencil cases, he got away with it.

[Paulie Dangerously]

One of my ma's mates has a girl who is 18 now, but ni her last year in school a bit of potassium* flew out landed on her head and burnt her.  The spirit of science is still going on

 

 

*might have been another reactive metal

[Einch]

Me and a mate tried to cook up TNT. Chemistry teacher kept walking past and shaking his head.

[Pureblood]

We had some experiment where they gave us a small fish, I can't remember what the aim of the experiment was.  To me it seemed to lack clarity. Anyway I cooked mine in some acid in a petri dish and it turned into some weird orange goo.  It stunk the whole room out and the teacher ordered everyone outside.  

[Jairzinho]

My chemistry lesson involved burning roughly 14 splints in the bunsen burner, repeat each week.

 

I assumed this was what everyone did. Occasionally pretending to smoke them.

[Lee909]

Only two come to mind

 

One being somebody dropping something in the sink and burning a hole through it. The other being coming into school on a monday morning to find the whole block flooded and computer rooms fucked. Somebody knew the water was out in the science labs and put the plugs in the sinks before turning all the taps on.

 

The tried keeping us all in during lunch and after school. Didn't go to either and told them to do ine as i was playing football that afternoon and not in the lesson.

 

Dont know who did either

[Remmie]

We had the fairy liquid gas tap experiment, that was pretty good, but only the teacher was allowed to do it which was probably for the best.

 

I got caught lighting a gas tap for Bunsen burners and informed I had risked the lives of over100 pupils and teachers. I got 1 weeks detention.

 

The gas tap lighting thing was done approximately 14 times per lesson and of course the first time I did it after serious egging on from a regular offender, I got caught.

 

I always resented the notion that I'd risked that many lives, don't believe it.

[Fowlers God]

I don't know what it was but I exploded some ink onto the really high ceiling and it's still there to this day

[Evelyn Tentions]

Oh, the fun we had.

Adding potassium permanganate (that purple stuff) to conc. sulphuric acid and then dropping little pellets of exercise books in and watching the pretty purple (highly toxic) smoke rings.

Dissolving iodine in ammonia and using it for all sorts of nasties - it's explosive when it dries out (touch powder).

Worked in a lab as a youngster and we got tasked (I'm totes up to date with modern jargon) with blowing up balloons for a Xmas party. One of my mates kept wandering round popping balloons with a spark gun used for lighting Bunsen burners so we filled a few balloons with gas. We strongly advised him not to pop THAT balloon so of course he made a big production number of it. Took all the hairs off the back of his hand and fused his eyebrow hairs together. Pissed ourselves laughing.

Had shitloads of tricks but I was fortunate that O H & S or whatever the fuck they're called now hadn't been invented back then.