8/23 - Lab Safety, Lab Equipment, and Significant Figures

Handouts: 2 (Lab Safety contract – due back signed on Friday, Significant figures sheet – which we do in class)

Today we identified different pieces of lab equipment that you will be using throughout the year, and explained what they are used for. Then we went through a lab safety contract. You need to sign this and get your parent to sign it by Friday of this week. After that there was a pop quiz (for those of you who were absent, you can not make this up, your next pop quiz will count twice). Then we reviewed significant figures when using measuring equipment. The basic rule is:

Read measurement to one place after the smallest division given on the measuring instrument.

We then handed out the significant figures worksheet, and worked on that for the remainder of class.

Please remember that the Manipulation of Data worksheet is due TOMORROW!
A tip for that sheet, for the first problem (line graph), we will say that the antler size is the independent variable, and the skull size is the dependent variable.