Today I decided to try something new in a forensic science student lab, taking small videos (Vines), creating a video lab script, see below.
The students had seen a lab script before hand, but this is a dry description of the steps they need to complete. I have decided to capture a small clip of the main stages of the practical class so the future students will be able to see what they need to complete before going into the class room. During the lab the students extract urine and hair samples to look for traces of diazepam and metabolites.
Here are the main steps they have completed:
1. Cutting up and weighing the hair samples
2. Sample and solution preparation
3. Incubating the hair in an oven for 2 hours
4. Injecting some standards onto the HPLC…
5. Extracting drugs from soaked hair
6. Drying the solvent down under nitrogen
7. Last step before HPLC. Adding mobile phase to the dry sample then sonication to ensure all of the drug is in solution
8. Post HPLC data analysis
That’s it! Today was a trial run, but I think it could be a really useful roll to show our students next year.
Any thoughts? Thanks for reading/viewing and feel free to comment
Some great ideas and know the students will find this facinating. Well done SHU and Tom
Tom, really great idea creating a vine for lab-protocol. Particularly for those not used to lab practice, it will be really useful even just to see the kit they will be using! Also it means students will arrive far more clued-up regarding the task which they should be better equipped to undertake with confidence!
Thanks both Bob and Nic. I had suggested we record all our labs a few years ago so people can see the key steps before entering the labs, but it was slow progress, so I decided to use the technology available (my mobile phone!). I had thought for a year or two that Vine would be useful for exactly this kind of idea.
Yes Nic, the idea that the students are more confident in performing a task is key. These are rough and ready buy certainly give the idea of what can be done!
Thanks
Tom