Öveges labor – our experience

Last week our class got the chance to visit our town’s high school’s laboratory, the Öveges labor. We went there to learn about the fascinating facts enthusiastic teachers share with students eager to learn.  

Two classes were held, one being biology and the other one being chemistry/physics. Our class was separated into two groups and we got to first experience the biology class. It was about microscopes. We got to use both light and stereo microscopes. It wasn’t easy to get the light microscope to work but we got a picture with the stereo microscope. We got to inspect a butterfly wing and some mushrooms. The butterfly wing was gorgeous and the mushroom was really smooth.

Chemistry was truly something else. We worked with liquid nitrogen, which was the best choice, because of its thrilling and exciting characteristics, such as its boiling point being -195.8 °C, and if you put anything in it for even just 3 seconds, that thing freezes. If that ‘anything’ happens to be your hand, that’s a death sentence to it. On the other hand, if you try to pour it on your hand, the liquid evaporates by the time it would reach it. We experimented with what happens if we pour it into a balloon, and shake it up by squeezing the mouth of the balloon preventing the nitrogen to escape - the balloon explodes! 

The students participated in most of the experiments, and I dare to say we all enjoyed it very much!

Anyway, it was definitely not a bore. It was way beyond interesting!