The Willow Glen Resident

High-tech school lab teaches biology, chemistry, neatness

Probes can read data more accurately and at a safe distance from lab computers

By Rebecca Wallace

Science, as a rule, is messy. Animal dissections are rarely tidy, and Erlenmeyer flasks filled with strange chemicals have a way of tipping over without warning.

The science department at Presentation High School has found a way to keep things neat--and accurate--with its computer-powered science lab. In use since last fall, the renovated 30-year-old lab now has 16 new computers and probes that can be attached to scientific calculators and used anywhere to gather data such as temperature, motion and pH values.

The probes are then brought back into the lab and hooked up to the computers, upon which biology, chemistry and physics students graph the data and write up lab reports.

"I would be hesitant to do chemical experiments in the same room with computers," said Ginnie Kissane, chair of the school's science department and a chemistry and biology teacher. "Now we can do experiments in any room, collect the data and bring it back. ... Many of the students get quite excited because it's something new and different."

The lab computers also have access to in-depth tutorial programs on various topics such as mitosis or photosynthesis.

"A lot of our girls are science-bound, interested in medicine," said school spokesperson Stephanie Still. "This is the software they'll be using in college."

The $100,000 lab renovation was funded by a grant from the San Jose Rotary Club, parents' donations and school funds, Still said.

One of the ways that the new technology is most useful is for determining pH values, Kissane said.

"In the old days--like, two years ago--we used pH paper," she said. "You'd just dip it into a liquid and see what the pH was, kind of, sort of. Now we have the pH probe that measures the pH to the hundredth of a pH unit. And we can now put it on a graph directly from collecting the data."

The science department has been phasing in the new technology as teachers learn how to use it, Kissane said. Heart-monitoring probes are slated to be used next. These probes clip onto the ear, and students could use them to measure the differences in heart rates during periods of resting and exercise.

In another nod to the need for neatness, the computers in the lab are elevated on stands above the lab tables, and the keyboards on trays underneath to protect them from a spill that might somehow still occur.

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