What is the stupidest thing a student has done or said...

We had one drink Copper Sulphate... Hello emergency...
Swallowed Iron Filings... they had a magnetic personality.
One wait for boiling water to cool... instead of adding cold.
One asking which side of the stirring rod to use.
Lesson on hormones... 'Please Miss, is that like vodka?'
'Okay everyone, these potatoes are not to be... chipped, thrown at each other, put down the sink or eaten.' They roasted them over a Bunsen.
What is a daisy?
'You have a ten pound budget, what would you buy for healthy eating?' They went to Farmfoods for five 99p frozen meals... and spent the rest on sweets.
Meat does not come from cows (or any other animal)... it comes from Morrisons.

 

Other than the obligatory referring of a splint as a spliff...

We had someone try to heat water over a bunsen in a plastic measuring cylinder.
A yr 13 try and fill a burette with a pipette.
My favourite is a child that refers to a conical flask as a comical flask.

I'm sure there are loads more but this is currently what comes to mind.

 

Heating water in a plastic container is possible, as a Scout I boiled water and made a cup of tea for our Queens' husband in a paper bag over an open fire when bonny PrinceCharlie was at Gordonstoun.
And I am still waiting for him to return the favour

 

Kid ate a glue stick last week. Teacher came in, stood in prep, her face was a picture.

We have also had the drinking copper sulphate.

Picking up crucibles and tripods that "don't LOOK hot"

One student who, doing mag/acid reactions, had a dim moment and added water to dilute the acid, then sat and timed for 10 minutes, before reporting to the teacher that is wasn't working...yep, he'd misunderstood, and thought the water/acid would react..no need for magnesium..

We get lots. There's no helping some. Darwinism at it's best.

 

We have had year 11s licking copper sulphate crystals. One pupil thought the sun and moon were the same thing but looked different at night. Also one asked who produces the best milk, a cow or a bull.

 

I've seen pupils filling burettes with the bulb pipettes before - they didn't know what the pipette was for so assumed that must be it - teacher being a chocolate teapot. Drinking universal indicator to see if it would show up how acidic your vomit is (yes really that was the stated reason). Coming to my prep room and asking for "Raw maggots", I had to query this one as I thought that class were doing physics - turns out teacher had said "more magnets" but pupil had misheard and thought maybe maggots were magnetic or something.

 

Was asked how did I learn stuff when there was no google on the internet, freaked them out when I told them I was older than the internet

 

See Bill Bailey Qualmpeddlar show re the sun/moon confusion for some. Priceless

 

A year 7 got magnetic ball bearings stuck up his nose. Went to A&E where they enticed them out with a metal hook (which is what I wanted to do but they wouldn't let me).

 

You should have used a neodinium magnet

 

Do they try to smoke them as well.

 

Not in this school, but it wouldn't surprise me at my old one! The kids here just think its funny.

 

I just recalled an incident where one ate a maggot...heh.

 

I think I got you all beat. Had a student (honors chemistry) that asked me if the flame from the Bunsen burner was real fire. First thing that popped into my head was go ahead and touch it, but I bit my tongue. I just don't understand how they can be in a lab all year and still not know the difference between a beaker and an Erlenmeyer, where the test tubes are located in their lab stations (used them all year). How they think if they stir something fast the temperature will go up and not think to add hot water? We always have at least one student that will keep pouring hot water out of their beaker thinking this will cool it down. It scares me to think someday I will be going to a doctor and it will be one of these kids.

 

I only knew it was an Erlenmeyer this year, I have always known them as conical flasks

 

Just curious, what do you call a Florence Flask?

 

I've never heard of that and had to look it up! I would call one of those a flat bottomed flask (as opposed to a round bottomed flask ).

 

Not going to lie, didn't have a name for them. We don't use them a lot so probably the round flask with a flat bottom.

So thanks for giving me something to call them that sounds more professional!!

 

I had to google it too, but to me its a flat bottomed round flask.

 

At the beginning of a dissection students asked "Is this a Frog's Heart or a Sheep's Heart?" My reply was a Frog's Heart. They said, looking surprised, they must be big Frogs. My reply was Giant 2 foot high African Frog's which are venomous and have teeth. I couldn't let them go without telling them that they were Sheep's Hearts.