I taught chemistry at small, rural schools. They didn’t have a lot of money for chemistry equipment. Still, I had the basic stuff.
It’s possible to buy beakers, flasks, balances and more online. Unless a student is really serious about a chemistry career or one involving a lot of chemistry, such an investment seems unnecessary to me.
Why Am I thinking About Chemistry Equipment?
I’m busy making up more puzzles for “The Chemistry Project” and wanted more word search types. That takes a list of words. So, I looked up things commonly found in a well-equipped chem lab.
Many of the names like Erlenmeyer flask, Florence flask and graduated cylinder are long. That makes such a puzzle challenging to create.
For those unfamiliar with these terms: Beakers are the cylindrical glass containers. Erlenmeyer flasks are the conical containers. Florence flasks have thin necks and a round bottom with a flat place so they sit on the lab bench. A graduated cylinder is a tall tube calibrated in milliliters (cubic centimeters) for measuring out liquids.
Home Equivalents
Since I don’t have the professional equipment, I went looking for substitutes. Empty glass peanut butter jars work as beakers. Eyedroppers work as dropper pipets.
The scales I use were purchased. They aren’t as nice as the three-beam balances, but they do work for the Investigations I do.
Water can be massed to be more accurate for volumes. If I come up with a tall, thin jar, I can even mark it out as a graduated cylinder.
What About Chemicals?
It was so nice to walk into my supply closet and pick out various chemicals. There were various metallic nitrates for flame tests. Different acids for experiments.
Now I rely on the local markets and stores. It’s amazing how much you can do using sugar, salt, rubbing alcohol and Epsom salts.
Perhaps a good part of this making do for chemistry equipment, is having to examine each Investigation for its true purpose. And that is the point of chemistry: to understand how and why substances behave as they do.