[Show a picture of our storage wall]
Our school, the Las Cruces Academy, has a huge array of scientific equipment and supplies. It’s the result of my childhood experiments that led me to become a scientist, plus 50 years of research and teaching at Yale, Los Alamos National Labs, New Mexico State University, some overseas posts, and now 13 years of teaching at the Academy. Add to that the research and teaching career of my wife, Dr. Lou Ellen Kay, founder of the Academy, and donations from other, especially the late Dr. Will Beattie, who made a second career after Los Alamos doing scientific demonstrations in schools.
Much of the equipment I list is available from multiple suppliers. Amazon.com will almost always show up in an online search for an item, but I refuse to buy from them, based on Amazon’s treatment of its workers and its gobbling up the business of the smaller suppliers. Make your own ethical decisions.
The lists here are very extensive, from multiple levels of science. Most school labs will have a fraction of these items. I list them all here as food for thought, about what demos and experiments you might consider. There are things I am missing, too, from other useful demos and experiments; send me any suggestions!
A very good supplier for almost all fields of science – especially biology and chemistry – is Carolina Biological Supply, at Carolina.com. The prices are good, as is the service. There are many other suppliers for various fields of science and technology. Here are some key ones that we’ve used:
DigiKey.com – for absolutely anything in electronics and electrical goodies
Mouser.com – similar
Newark.com – not quite as quick as DigiKey
Jameco Electronics jameco.com – for electronics kits and some components
B&H Photovideo – bhphotovideo.com – for cameras of all types, optical filters, audio equipment – the gold standard for price, selection, and service!
Davis Instruments – for weather stations and sensors
Adafruit.com and Canakit.com – for Raspberry Pi computers and accessories
TotalElement.com – for chemical elements at great prices
Fisher Scientific – fishersci.com and thermofisher.com – bell jar (vacuum chamber)
Luciteria.com – for sodium metal and other neat things chemical
Omega Engineering – omega.com – for all manner of electronic instrumentation
Imagesco.com – for Geiger counter kits and uranium ore samples
Sigma Aldrich – for some chemicals (more expensive for most than is Carolina Biological Supply)
Your local grocery and drug store, for many common chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide (go to a hair salon for the stronger stuff!), bleach, a glucose meter, dry ice, etc.
Your local welding supply store for liquid nitrogen, graphite electrodes
Your local Batteries Plus Bulbs for batteries, lamps, and expertise
Your local electronics parts place – in Las Cruces, Edgar Digital had scads of integrated circuit chips, a huge capacitor, and many odds and ends; alas, Radio Shack is out of the real parts business
eBay.com for some really out of the way items!
Note: Highlighted items are links to demos or experiments that have been posted (or will be posted)
Really useful, general-purpose items
One significant investment: a rolling science cart with a sink, an acid-resistant counter, an aluminum rod frame for attaching apparatus, an electrical plug and socket, and shelves with doors. We paid about $800. It saves time hauling – often delicate -items by hand, risking damage to desks, etc.
A modest-to-significant investment: a dissecting microscope, binocular – great for viewing samples of plants, insects, hangnails, you name it – $100 and up
Similarly: a compound microscope – for magnification to, say, 400x; get a light source with it, and a set of microscope slides (blank ones for your own samples – thin glass rectangles). You might also get a set or sets of prepared slides of biological samples – $200 and up
Light sources: more as a tool but having other uses, an LED light bar in a small handheld light
Tools – to make some lab devices as we did – lens holders, launching platforms, etc.
Screwdrivers (flat blade and Phillips; including some fine, small blades for tiny screws)
Pliers – regular and needle-nose
Vise-Grips
Hammer
Bubble level
Hacksaw and a few spare blades
Electric drill; drill bits (a set of sizes); screwdriver bits; chuck key
Set of files
L- or T-square for measuring items to be cut
Heat gun – hotter than a hair dryer
Soldering iron, fine tip for electronics, broader for heavier work
Solder
Desoldering tape (woven copper)
Glue, electrician’s tape, duct tape
Teflon tape (a plumber’s supply) for sealing threads on pipes
Electrical extension cords
Power strips, with surge protection
Small electronic “balances” with ranges of 10g or 100g (or more) – $25-50 or more
Lots of fasteners – wood screws, nails, machine screws, nuts, sheet metal screws, washers, grommets, standoffs in various sizes
Spare pieces of wood
Heat gun – to shrink heat-shrink tubing, warm some equipment, set some adhesives
Marble slab for experiments with flames
Aluminum foil -e.g, as light shield for pots used in growing plants hydroponically
Pitchers and large bowls for experiments with water
Paper towels, for lots of cleanup (and for making flash paper)
Book matches
Candles
In general: don’t overlook the little things whose lack will suddenly stall a nice demo or experiment – e.g., tape, weighing paper, a stirrer
Safety
Gloves – latex or nitrile, youth and adult sizes
Thermally insulating gloves for dry ice, hot glassware, etc.!
Safety goggles, in youth and adult sizes
Lab coats, in various sizes
First-aid kit
Acid spill kit (bucket with commercial sorbent or sodium bicarbonate; squeegee and garbage bag)
Plastic 5-gal buckets for safely transporting strong acids in glass bottles
Mostly chemistry
Weighing paper for weighing out chemicals
Small spatulas for doling out chemicals (but do abide by the lab rule – no spatula goes into the reagent bottle, and no reagent ever gets put back into the reagent bottle with the risk of contamination)
Glass stirring bars – even make your own
Precision adjustable pipettors, 0.1 to 5 ml ($140 + supply of tips)
Big pipettor, fixed volume, and tips – 5 ml
Stirring hot plate ($120)
Teflon-coated magnetic stir bars to use with the stirring hot plate
Chemical glassware and associated items: Carolina.com
Beakers of sizes from 50 to 600 ml (rarely need the biggies)
Test tubes – you can get by with a common size such as 10 cm by 1 cm diameter, or add small ones for micro-assays
Test tube rack
1 or 2 50ml burettes with stopcock and grease for titrations
Graduated cylinders for making solutions– some inexpensive plastic, some glass, in sizes 10 ml to 250 ml
Volumetric flasks with ground-glass stoppers, for mixing up precise concentrations of solutions – 25 to 250 ml (ca. $10 on up)
Funnels – some simple plastic; at least one nice ceramic filtering funnel
Filter paper – fine/slow and fast, to fit the ceramic filtering funnel
Ceramic mortar and pestle, for grinding samples
Test-tube and burette cleaning brushes – long handles
Electrical heating tape to wrap around flasks
Tygon tubing in various sizes
pH meters – real ones, not passive ($80)
Clamps for glass flasks
A ring stand or two
Ring clamp to hold a round distillation vessel
Boiling chips (marble, ceramic shards, or small stones)
Metals and semimetals – Al, Fe, Ga, In, Sb, Sn, Cu, Bi, Zn, Pb, Si, Ni – supplier is Totalelement.com!
Charcoal, as mainly carbon
Mg ribbon – fantastically bright light – warn students not to focus on it; keep their eyes moving!
Glucose meter ($40) – follow the reaction of starch breaking down into glucose
Graphite welding rods, as inert electrodes for electrolysis of water- any welding store
Atomizer bottles – empty bottles from eyeglass cleaner or nasal spray
Chemical reagents – always know the precautions and always read the materials safety datasheet (MSDS), which is available by Google search such as “Potassium nitrate MSDS”
Household items, useful for a number of demos and experiments
Sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO3 – a weak base, and a nice source of CO2
Vinegar, a solution of acetic acid, CH3COOH – a weak acid
Borax, for some odd experiments, Na2B4O7.10H2O
Chlorine bleach, a solution of sodium hypochlorite, NaOCl
Ammonium hydroxide, a solution of NH4OH, called “ammonia” colloquially
Vegetable oil
Sodium chloride, NaCl, table salt
Flour – even as a combustible
Sulfur, S
Hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, a 3% solution in water with stabilizer; 20% is available in hair salons
Ascorbic acid, vitamin C (get pills with no binder) – reductant
From a corporate source, such as Carolina.com
Strong base: potassium hydroxide (lye, KOH) or sodium hydroxide (caustic soda or lye NaOH)
Strong acid: sulfuric acid (H2SO4), as a solution, or concentrated (dangerous but useful)
Strong acid, safer: hydrochloric acid (HCl; moderately pure form as muriatic acid at a hardware store), as concentrated solution
Strong acid and oxidizer: nitric acid, concentrated, for making flash paper, e.g.
Potassium permanganate: strong oxidizer, strong color
Potassium nitrate: oxidizer, and plant nutrient source
Specialty: Potassium dichromate: strong oxidizer, in demo on spontaneous combustion
Dyes and acid-base or redox indicators:
Phenolphthalein, the classic
Methylene blue
Luminol, for chemiluminescence = make your own glow sticks
Ethanol – solvent; substrate in esterification experiment
Methanol – solvent in some spectrophotometric determinations
Acetone- solvent, and substrate in flameless combustion; nail polish remover; also in bulk in hardware stores
Glycerol
Metal salts, including for flame colors:
Potassium chloride, KCl
Specialty: Lithium chloride, LiCl
Specialty: Rubidium chloride, RbCl
Specialty: Cesium chloride, CsCl
pH buffers, standards, at pH 4, 7, an 10
See also those listed under biology: plant growth and biochemistry
We have other reagents but they’re more specialized
Significant investment: reverse-osmosis and deionizer system, for supply of very pure water
Handy: Glassware drying rack: you can make your own with big board and dowels
Mostly physics
Thermocouple thermometer, e.g., Omega ($90; really useful),
and thermocouple wire and connectors
Electronics supplies – see separate listing, below
Magnets, esp. rare-earth (strong magnets), and simple horseshoe magnets to show field lines
¾”-diameter copper tubing, about 16” long at a hardware store – for the dramatic slowly falling magnet demo!
Magnet wire, very thin lacquer insulation, fine gauge (e.g., 33), on a spool
Gyroscopes – toy ones work fine ($5)
Optics – Edmund Scientific has them, though it’s become expensive; there are other suppliers
Simple spectroscopes for viewing light sources – plastic
Several glass prisms
A selection of converging and diverging lens (make your own holders, as from wood)
Color filters, gelatin or plastic – Wratten or Rosco
Polarizing filters – get from a camera store such as B&H Photo Video
Liquid crystal samples – they show temperature patterns
Fresnel lens sheet
Black-light bulb (near ultraviolet; usually incandescent, but there are LEDs, too)
High-density welder’s glass, for viewing Sun
My LED color mixer, made from LEDs and some electronics
Radiometer (4 vanes in a sealed glass ampule; turns in sunlight)
Specialty: Heat-absorbing glass; show the separation of visible light from thermal infrared
Gray card, photographic, or make your own, as calibration for incident light flux density
Pulleys
Springs, a selection – extension and compression types
“Fish scale” to measure pulling forces
Pressure gauge, reading + and -, 1 bar (atmosphere) up and down
Newton’s cradle – ball bearings on microfilament lines, in a row ($30) – fascinating momentum demo
Geiger counter kits from $130; get a uranium ore sample to “drive” it – ca. $100 for one sufficiently active
Several butane torches
Red, violet, and green laser pointers – $15 a set! Very useful
On demand, on the day of the demo or experiment
Liquid nitrogen – a few $$ per liter, but you need a pricey Dewar flask ($300) to hold it
Dry ice – $2 per pound at a grocery store
🡪 Get a foam picnic chest to hold it
Plasma ball for great electrical discharge phenomena
Tuning fork
Basketball, from your play yard – to show elastic rebound and loss; used in a great demo of “small ball on top of big ball” that rockets the small ball very high
Large ball bearing – to show both kinetic center-of-mass energy and rotational energy down a ramp
Large metal rod – handy to show diffusion of heat; attach bottle caps with wax at various points and heat the rod in the center
Sewing needle to float on very clean water
Dish detergent to break the surface tension
Electronics
You can buy kits that let students try 20 to 50 different circuits as demos or experiments.
You may get into you or your students making your own circuits. In that case, read on.
Electronic multimeter – indispensable; – $25-50; volts AC and DC, ohms, amperes over various ranges; some offer measurement of capacitance or inductance
Tools – see earlier, esp. soldering equipment, side-cutters, pliers
Wire
You’ll use wire to carry small signals all over, or to carry significant power. For signals among all the components noted below, use fine wire, say, 22 gauge. Use solid core, not stranded, if you want to stick wires into breadboard holes, especially.
Get several colors, which can help in tracing circuits
For devices with significant power output (heaters, lamps, etc.), use heavier 18-gauge wire, such as classic lamp cord, two insulated wires in one insulated cord.
To make electromagnets or radio-frequency coils, get fine magnet wire
More specialized but fun for long-term projects: wire-wrap wire and tools. The wire is fine, at 30 gauge, and it has thin but very sufficient insulation that’s easily stripped off with a special tool. You connect wire-wrap wire to pins of devices with a twist-tool, also special
Alligator clips – These are sooooo handy to make temporary connections! Two clips, one on each end of a piece of wire
Connectors – we have about 100 types. There are make-and-break connectors that you can undo at will (slim ones for fine wires, or hefty spade lugs, or audio plug style), permanent crimp-on connectors. There are connectors for multiple wires at a time (ConX-All, Molex) with various numbers of pins.
Naturally, there are special connector to special sources, with a prime example being a power plug and its companion, a power socket.
For use in temporary circuits on a breadboard (but we have used them in a permanent board) there are thin, stiff pins that you can solder onto a bare wire.
Heat–shrink tubing – When you make bare soldered joints you’ll want to insulate them. You can wrap them with electrician’s tape, but it’s tidier to slip heat-shrink tubing over the wire leading to the solder joint (far away enough not to shrink prematurely). After the joint cools, push the tubing along to cover the joint. Use a match or a heat gun to shrink it snugly
Switches – toggle (have handles), DIP (push little embedded handles), and more; there are switches for single lines or double lines and for single on-position or two on-position (SPST, DPST, DPST, DPDT); there are momentary contact and latching switches. Figure out your needs and get a few. There are tiny switches that mount on a perfboard or a breadboard, and others that mount through holes in chassis. There are also in-line switches, typically with a rotating wheel for controlling lamps.
“Passive” components
1/8- or ¼-watt resistors, in profusion – from 0.3 ohms to 10 megohms – you can buy assortments; get a fair number of common values such as 10, 15, 22, 33, 47,56, 68, 82, 100, 150, 220, 330, 470, 560, 680, 820Ω, and in kilohms 1, 1.5, 2.2, 3.3, 4.7, 5.6, 6.8, 8.2, 10, 15, 22, 33, 47, 56, 68, 82, 100, 150, 220, 330, 470, 560, 680, 820, and in megohms 1, 3.3, 10
Potentiometers – these are variable resistors that you adjust with a dial (on a ¼” shaft, or tiny ones with fine-screwdriver slots) – common ones are 5 kΩ, 10 kΩ, 50 kΩ
Capacitors – there are many types: ceramic (small values), polyester (medium), electrolytic (big values; note that these are polarized and cannot be used with reverse voltage). Get an assortment, or read some schematics for circuits you want to build before buying
Inductors – these are less frequently used in simple projects
Active components – discrete components, as opposed to integrated circuits
Diodes – again, many types – basically low-signal and power diodes, as well as Schottky (no bias) and Zener (fixed breakdown voltage, to set reference voltages) – get a few 1N4148
You might get into AC power devices, using silicon controlled rectifiers, Triacs, etc.
Photodiodes for light detection
Transistors – also many types, especially junction vs. field effect, NPN vs. PNP, and small-signal vs. power. Get a few small-signal ones, such as 2N2222A (NPN type), and 2N2907 (PNP), and some MOSFET for larger currents (IRF Z34)
LEDs – light-emitting diodes – Get a few of red,, green, and blue, low power (20 or 40 milliampere current), but also think of fun with power LEDs, up to several watts; there are various packages and degrees of directionality of output; yet another is a thermocouple readout
Integrated circuits – So many types. You’ll get used to reading the datasheets at DIgiKey or online! They’ll guide you to just what you need
Operational amplifiers – really cool way to get any amplification, and more; many types; a good old 741 is useful, and an ICL7650 is low-noise, low-offset. Some of my favorite circuits with op amps: one gets a tiny current from a photodiode and creates a significant voltage, as a light sensor; another is an audio pre-amp; yet another is a controlled current source for an LED
555 timer – a workhorse
Voltage regulators – common ones are 3.3V, 5V
Precision voltage references – these are mostly references per se, not power outputs
Be sure to get DIP (dual inline pin) sockets for these, not surface-mount devices that are hellish to solder to; common ones have 6, 8, 14, or 16 pins
Breadboards for placing components and hooking them together. They have lines of holes at 0.1” spacing. You can insert wires or the pins of resistors or integrated circuits, etc. to make connections
Chassis – You may want to make some permanent pieces in aluminum boxes. If you do, be sure to consider buying hole punches to avoid endless filing
Power supplies – Lotsa options here. There are what are called wall chargers, akin to phone chargers but having simple coaxial connectors; you can cut the ends off to get two free wires onto which you can solder pin connectors and plug those pins into a breadboard
Battery holder, if you’re going this way – esp. for AA cells and for 9V batteries (clips)
Specialty items include optoisolators, logic gates (don’t go overboard; AND, NAND, NOR, XOR) and multiple gates (latches, multiplexers); thermocouple wire (get an Omega Engineering catalog – full of great info!)
Other neat items, low cost:
Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) to allow a sensor such as a photodiode to feed into a digital computer
Accelerometers – 1- to 6-axis, to detect and record motion of many types
Digital displays – These can be nifty. You can buy small ones for $15 that just read a scaled analog voltage; be sure not to exceed their input voltage range, which is often just 200 mV; of course, there are ones that tiny monitors that display lines of characters
Inexpensive oscilloscope
Mostly biology – see general purpose items above re microscopes, slides
Dissecting microscopes ($180)
Microscopes ($100-300)
Microscope camera that fits down the tube – e.g., from Amscope ($95)
Dissecting scalpel and spare blades – caution! – also get a small “sharps disposal container for used blades
Terrarium, for both long-term plant growth and a controlled environment
Petri dishes for microbial growth
(Borrow from a kitchen) Pressure cooker- to sterilize Petri dishes and growth media
Agar, to make growth media
Starch, also
Parafilm, wide, thin “tapes” of wax for sealing Petri dishes
Plant growth items
There are many fine experiments, growing plants in soil
Pots, potting soil (even better, real soil)
Hydroponic growth:
Pots with covers that can be drilled for the plant to emerge
Modeling clay to hold plant in place
Aquarium pumps to aerate and stir the nutrient solutions
Equipment from the chemistry listing to mix solutions
Chemicals to mix up the nutrient solution: There are options, but here’s a set we’ve used; I give the chemical formulas, since some chemical names can be ambiguous to people:
KNO3 (potassium nitrate) – for both K and N
KH2PO4 (potassium phosphate dibasic) – for both K and P
K2SO4 (potassis=um sulfate) – for both K and S
MgSO4.7H2O (magnesium sulfate = Epsom salts) or Mg(NO3)2.6H2O (magnesium nitrate)
For both Mg and S
CaSO4 (calcium sulfate) – for both Ca and S
KCl (potassium chloride) or CaCl2 (calcium chloride) or NH4Cl (ammonium chloride – for Cl
FeEDTA – ferric ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid (ferric versenate) – for Fe; any plant store has it
ZnSO4 – for Zn alone (small quantity needed provides negligible S)
CuSO4.5H2O – for Cu alone
MnSO4.2H2O – for Mn alone
H3BO3 (boric acid) or Na2B4O7.10H2O (borax) – for B
Na2MoO4.2H2O (sodium molybdate) – for Mo; need so little – ask a chemist for a smidge
I have a spreadsheet to calculate the amounts of each.
The list of elements is then N, P, K, S, Ca, Mg, Cl, Fe, Zn, Cu, Mn, B, Mo; some plants need other elements in tiny amounts, such as V or Si
(A modest investment, $99, great for genetics): Wisconsin Fast Plants kit from Carolina Biological Supply
Grow lamps for plants – there are pricey ones but also inexpensive ones; make a frame with clamps to hold them
Some biochemistry
Glucose
Sucrose (table sugar)
Pepsin HCl – a digesting enzyme
Papain, meat tenderizer – ditto
Potassium iodide (KI) and elemental iodine (I2), or buy the mix, KI3, for detecting starch; the two components are also useful in chemistry experiments
Antibiotics, including doxycycline and simple Neosporin paste
Color-blindness test chart
Optical illusion disks
Earth science – geology and meteorology (very incomplete list)
Mineral samples – see also chemistry: metal samples
Simple barometer for air pressure, to relate to weather
Wire loop for flame tests – use with butane torch: chemistry; same for borax to make borax beads
Rock hammer
Dissecting microscope – see under biology
Some neat specialty items
Inexpensive
Tweakers
Steel plate, 24” square,
Raspberry Pi computers or Arduino computers – small, cheap, and with fantastic features for sensing and control that you won’t find handily anywhere else. Look these up on the Web, including their accessories such as USB hubs, breakout boards, and ribbon cables; great as dataloggers and controllers totally beyond any laptop – start at $25!
For the “RPi”:
Case, power supply (usually come with the kit)
Breakout board – to use on a breadboard to make connections to the input/output pins
40-pin or the like cable to attach to the breakout
Wireless dongle
HDMI cable to connect to a display (monitor)
HDMI to VGA adapter, in case you use an older monitor); some powered by the HDMI port work very well, and others don’t; some pass the audio signal, and some don’t – choose well
PiHub USB hub, sometimes needed for big projects
Note that RPis run on 3.3V signals and Arduinos run on 5V signals; each has advantages and precautions for not exceeding input voltages
High-speed camera, 240 frames per second (8x speed) or higher. This is great for recording and analyzing motion, such as we did in the “flight” of an eraser launched horizontally, to measure the vertical gravitational acceleration and show negligible horizontal acceleration. We have a classic Casio Exilim ZR-100 (up to 1000 fps!), alas, no longer made, but a GoPro ($300; up to 240 fps) is very good.
Parts to make a Chladni plate, a thin steel plate set into resonant vibration that patterns fine sand placed on it
Thin galvanized steel plate, 18” or 24” square; I think we used 18 gauge
“Vibration speaker(s)” – high impedance modules to mount on a surface; we used Tweakers, discontinued, but there are other makes available
Big-ticket items we acquired and love
Vacuum chamber system ($400)
Big bell jar (ca. 40 cm tall, 20 cm in diameter)
Vacuum pump
Vacuum / pressure gauge
Various fittings (see the page on demos)
Vacuum flask with 1-hole rubber stopper and glass tubing
Spectrophotometer – Sequoia Turner – measure absorption and transmission of solutions in 1-cm cuvettes over wide ranges of wavelengths, from 320 nm to 850 nm; a precision instrument, but pricey; ours is old but a comparable new one might be $1500 or more; great for many chemical assays and experiments
Spectroradiometer – ancient, but so useful for measuring the flux of radiation (UV, light, near infrared) at many different regions of the spectrum and many intensity levels
FLIR One Pro thermal imager for an Android phone ($370)
Specialized, cheap to expensive:
Distillation kit, including electrical heating tape
Round-bottom flasks with ground-glass joints
Distillation column
Condenser
Tip, condenser to receiving flask
Temperature controller for water bath similar to one I made (equivalent store-bought ca. $250)
Autotransformer (can use big isolated transformer) ($600)
Model rockets with selection of engines of different specific impulse / delay / booster function
Sling psychrometer ($83) – measuring atmospheric humidity the classic way
Ferrofluid – magnetic nanoparticles in brake fluid – takes great shapes under strong magnets – be sure never to let magnets touch the fluid directly or you’ll never wipe it off; put the ferrofluid in a glass beaker
I can tell you suppliers for some things not readily available in your town – e.g., Carolina Biological Supply for Petri dishes on up to sulfuric acid
Maybe better way, as this list is soooo long: ask me for any set of demos and experiments what supplies and equipment are not clearly noted (and that may not be obvious)
DigiKey.com – for absolutely anything in electronics and electrical goodies
Mouser.com – similar
Newark.com – not quite as quick as DigiKey
Jameco Electronics jameco.com – for electronics kits and some components
B&H Photovideo – bhphotovideo.com – for cameras of all types, optical filters, audio equipment – the gold standard for price, selection, and service!
Note: Highlighted items are links to demos or experiments that have been posted (or will be posted)