With the Assam board HS exams right around the corner, students studying under the  Assam Higher Secondary Education Council (AHSEC) should be anxious to finish the curriculum, as well as the teachers. Today, we present to you the AHSEC physics practical syllabus in detail with explanations. Armed with this, you will be able to know exactly what they will expect out of you in the exam.

The education system in Assam is handled by two governmental bodies ‒ the AHSEC and the Board of Education, Assam. AHSEC handles the upper secondary or higher secondary classes (XI and XII), while SEBA handles classes primary to 10th grade. The system is well-formatted to handle the coming requirements of the  New Education Policy 2022 . 

Assam board HS council divides the physics curriculum into two parts ‒ theoretical and practical. The theoretical part includes a lot of important knowledge, but the problem with modern education is that nowadays pertinent skills come from hands-on learning only. This is why the practical bit of the syllabus is so important. 

However, not all schools complete all the experiments in the practical syllabus. Doesn’t matter what reason there may be, at the end the students may feel incomplete compared to other boards or schools that do complete the syllabus. So, you should go over the following curriculum and see which experiments and observations you need to complete. Labkafe can help you with the rest, or revisions of the same if needed.

The AHSEC physics practical syllabus itself is divided into two parts ‒ sections A and B. Each student, at the time of the yearly examination, has to submit a record. The record has to include the reports of the following:

1. Records of 15 experiments minimum. This will include experiments from both sections, at least 6 of them from each section. This makes 12 experiments, and three more you need to do from any section as you prefer. (We, however, recommend that you complete all of them, if your future includes physics or science in any way). The students would perform these experiments and they would create a report on each.
2. Records of 5 activities minimum, with two from each section at least. The teachers will perform these activities, while the students create their own reports on what they saw.
3. A student will also create a project report for the project they would undertake.

In the practical examination, there will be 3 hours of time to complete two experiments that you’ve covered, for 8 marks each. After this, you will have to give your practical record, which is marked for 6 marks. The project work you’ll present is valued at 3 marks, and a viva session on everything above for 5 marks.

AHSEC Physics Practical Experiment List

As mentioned above, the Assam board physics practical is divided into two sections as follows.

Section A

Experiments

1. Vernier caliper experiment:
   1. For measuring the diameter of a small cylindrical or spherical object
   2. For measuring the density of an object of a given mass
      1. Note: to do this, you will have to use the vernier caliper to find the dimensions of the object.
   3. To measure the volume of a given beaker or calorimeter
      1. Note: to do this, you will have to find the internal diameter of the given hollow object using the vernier.
2. Screw gauge experiment:
   1. Measure the thickness of a wire (diameter)
   2. Measure the thickness of a sheet
   3. Measure the volume of an irregularly shaped object (lamina)
3. Spherometer experiment:
   1. Measuring the radius of curvature of a large spherical object (can be partially spherical as well)
4. Using a beam balance to find out the mass of at least two objects.
5. Parallelogram experiment:
   1. Find the weight of an object using the law of vectors.
6. Pendulum experiment:
   1. Plot L-T and L-T2 graphs.
   2. From these graphs, find the effective length of a seconds pendulum.
7. Friction experiment:
   1. Find out the coefficient of friction between a block of wood and a horizontal surface (your lab workbench’s top would do fine), by plotting the relationship between the force of limiting friction and normal reaction.
8. Plot the graph between the sine of a surface inclination and the gravitational force acting on a roller when it is placed on that surface.

Activities

1. Making a paper scale of a given least count (for example 2 mm or 5 mm).
2. Using the principle of moments to find the mass of a given body.
3. Plotting a graph for some given data with proper error bars and scaling.
4. Figuring out the force of limiting friction acting on a roller on a horizontal plane.
5. Display exactly how the length of a water jet changes as you change the angle of the jet.
6. Show how the motion energy falls in a seconds pendulum with a graph between amplitude squared and time.

Section B

Experiments

1. Young’s modulus experiment:
   1. Find out Young’s modulus of elasticity for a wire in tension.
2. Determine the force constant and effective mass of a helical spring in oscillation with a T2 vs m graph.
3. Plot P-V and P-1/V graphs for some air at a constant temperature.
4. Capillary Tube experiment:
   1. Determine the surface tension of local tap water.
5. Find out the coefficient of viscosity for a sphere moving in a given viscous liquid, by measuring the sphere’s terminal velocity. 
6. Plot a ‘cooling curve’ for a hot body by recording time vs temperature.
7. Sonometer experiment:
   1. Plot frequency vs length for a wire in constant tension
   2. Plot length vs tension for a wire at a given frequency
8. Resonance tube experiment:
   1. Determine the speed of sound in air with two different resonance positions at room temperature.
9. Specific heat experiment:
   1. Find out the specific heat of a given solid by mixture method
   2. Find out the specific heat of a given liquid by mixture method

Activities

1. Plot a cooling curve for an organic solid (like wax).
2. Show the effect of heat in a bi-metallic strip.
3. Show the effect of heat on a liquid (change of volume).
4. In the capillary tube experiment, display the effect of adding detergent.
5. Display how different factors can affect the cooling rate of hot water.
6. Note how a meter scale bends with a weight at its middle and at the end.

Assam Board HS Syllabus and Exams

The AHSEC will hold the higher secondary examinations from March 15 2022 to April 12 2022. Almost all tests will be held at half-past one in the afternoon. The practicals are supposed to be done by 10th March. Millions of students in Assam will sit these exams, and we wish our best to all of them. 

All of the above experiments and activities in the AHSEC physics practical syllabus can be performed using Labkafe’s AHSEC Physics Lab Package. This special laboratory equipment and consumables package are custom-made for the Assam board syllabus, and best used for 30 students (although that can be easily customized). This lab package is mandatory for you if you’re trying to get an AHSEC affiliation. We have  affiliation lab packages for other boards like CBSE ICSE IGCSE and other state boards.

For additional understanding of these physics laboratory experiments and activities, the Assam Higher Secondary Education Council recommends that you follow the NCERT Physics lab manuals which you can find  here . We also recommend that you follow  Labkafe’s Youtube channel to see live demos of these practicals.

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To operate in a laboratory you have to make it safe first. Without providing lab safety equipment you run a high risk of horrible accidents. Here is a list of lab safety equipment and why you need them. They are essential safety equipment for your laboratory.

Laboratories are dangerous places by nature. There are devices like Bunsen burners with gas-operated open flames, there are corrosive acids and bases, there is spring-loaded equipment that can hit people, there are sharp apparatus that is easy to cut your hand on and get infected ‒ the list can go on and on.

Since all of these (and more) make a laboratory a risky place, your best bet is to invest in lab safety equipment early on. While procuring lab equipment, you should add the following essential lab safety equipment to your order list. They will ensure timely action on your part to save your students and employees from grievous harm due to lab-related accidents.

Top 10 Lab Safety Equipment List

1. Lab gloves for students

Protect your hands with some disposable gloves! Most substances you handle in a laboratory are dangerous ‒ they can be corrosive or contaminating. Trust me, you do NOT want these things to touch your bare skin. Wearing lab gloves is an excellent way to prevent that and work with toxic or corrosive substances safely. After use, make sure that you discard them in the proper disposal container marked for dangerous substances.

2. Safety goggles

Your eyes are perhaps the most precious organs in your body and you do NOT want anything dangerous anywhere near them. Lab goggles for students protect their eyes from chemical splashes and other substances springing out. They are pretty simple, inexpensive, and one-size-fits-all. So, make it mandatory for everyone to wear safety glasses inside laboratories.

3. Eyewash

In the same line with the previous ‒ what if you were not wearing goggles and something did get into your eyes? Run to the nearest eye wash station and let the water splash into your eyes. This is the fastest first aid in case of any eye injury in a laboratory. The high-pressure water should dissolve any intruding chemical or substance, and clean the hurt area.

4. Fume hood

More often than not you would be doing some potentially dangerous experiment in your chemistry lab. Something that gives off foul, toxic fumes, or something that may splash or even explode. Do these experiments inside a fume hood. These safety cabinets have an inbuilt mechanism to suck any dangerous fumes away from the user, and tough glass in front to protect from accidental splashes or burns.

5. Disposable Masks

This one is a no-brainer. Labs have dangerous gasses and toxic particles in the air and liquids that can splash up and hit your pretty face. Wear a surgical mask or better even, N95 masks to protect a large portion of your face and breathe better. 

6. Fire extinguishers

Since a laboratory often works with fire, it should go without saying that you will need at least one fire extinguisher in your lab. Place them in an easily accessible section of the lab, and train everyone to use one in case of a fire. You can use water-based, foam-based, or wet chemical types of fire extinguishers.

7. First aid kits

Minor cuts, bruises, and burns are all the common things a lab instructor sees almost every week. It doesn’t make sense to run to the nurse’s station every time you get a little finger bleed. But it is necessary to clean, disinfect, and dress the wound, or else a simple thing like a scalpel slice can turn into gangrene and maybe loss of limb as well. So, keep a prepared box with antiseptic lotion, bandages, scissors, tweezers, readymade plasters, hand sanitizer, antibiotic ointment, burn cream, etc. in your lab at all times. 

8. Lab coats

While you are not going to need a full hazmat suit to work in school and college laboratories, still you need some level of full-body protection ‒ if only to protect your clothes and exposed skin. Lab coats are plain, cheap, and easy to maintain. This makes them one of the best lab safety equipment for school, college, and institute levels.

9. Safety showers

Splash accidents are the most common after fires in chemistry laboratories. When you get splashed with large amounts of chemicals, the best solution is to immediately pour a lot of water on yourself. A safety shower works wonderfully in these kinds of situations. When you get splashed, immediately run to the shower and pull the cord.

10. Safety storage cabinets

People generally don’t think of storage cabinets as a safety solution ‒ but when you think of human nature, it makes sense. Lock away your dangerous substances in safe cabinets restricted to students and you will drastically reduce the chance of laboratory mishaps. Plus, there are some specialized storages like fume cabinets which clean up chemical fumes and are especially resistant to corrosive effects.

Winding Up

The safety of students and workers in a laboratory should be paramount as no knowledge is as expensive as damage to humans. Realizing that, one should always provide lab safety equipment the first thing in any laboratory. There is no excuse for cuts and burns happening due to a sheer lack of safety concerns for students.

Labkafe provides many high-quality lab safety solutions for all kinds of labs, from school level to large research organizations. Contact us today to learn how you can protect your pupils from the dangers of a lab. We provide free consultations about how to set up a laboratory, free laboratory design, and lab safety advice.

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1. Count Your Chickens.

I mean, count your students! How many users will you have in each lab working together at one time? This number will heavily influence most of your procurement decisions later as this will determine the quantity of lab equipment you are going to need. 

As per CBSE/ICSE bye-laws, you need to provide for at least 30 students in a practical classroom at a time. In other words, your lab has to be big enough and have enough furniture and equipment to let 30 students and one teacher or instructor work. 

You can increase this number as much as you wish, but do keep in mind that the larger a group becomes the harder it gets to manage those people. Imagine having a hundred students in a class ‒ would you like to take that period? Labkafe recommends that you keep your lab capacity under 45. 

2. Good things come in packs.

Obviously, you have to figure out what you want to buy before you buy it, but it gets more difficult with school lab supplies. Solely for the reason that there are so many of these things! You have your laboratory equipment, apparatus, glassware, support items, machines, chemicals, consumables, safety equipment ‒ and each of these has literally hundreds of different little products you are going to need just if you want to barely meet your affiliation requirements.

So, what’s the solution? One good way to overcome this problem is to look for lab equipment suppliers who provide lab packages. Best if they provide per-affiliation packages ‒ if not, at least look for a vendor with per-experiment packages. Affiliation packages are of course the best since they cover your full syllabus and meet your board’s affiliation requirements cleanly as well. Better if they let you customize the packages as well ‒ you’ll need some personalization, you’ll see.

3. Careful with upgrades.

If you are renovating your laboratory and not building a new one, choosing equipment for it gets trickier. Your existing facility has some equipment and you will need some others, and maybe add equipment for some entirely new procedures. To do this, you will have to build a full list of lab equipment that you’ll need. 

Your lab teacher or lab instructor would be able to help you out most about this. But it still is a painstaking and long process for them. Make it easier by connecting with a proper lab consultant. They will do a free site visit and list out what you need according to what you want to do. 

4. No need to dirty your hands.

When crates of lab equipment arrive at your doorstep, the next headache you have is to unpack and fit them into where they should go. This is a tedious and thankless process nobody enjoys doing. And most lab suppliers would just drop the boxes and walk away ‒ thinking their responsibility finishes with the delivery. That’s not right at all.

So, when you choose a lab item supplier, insist upon free unboxing and free installation. A good school lab supplies vendor should be happy to comply. A REALLY good supplier would actually come forward and give you free demonstrations of a few procedures as well! Granted, there aren’t many of them out there.

5. Shiny doesn’t mean gold.

You are spending beaucoup bucks for your student’s future, so why would you want to compromise on quality? Just because some stuff is available on the market does not mean they will give you results on the lab table ‒ you probably know this already. Nobody would want to compromise their student’s performance due to poor equipment and consumable quality.

So instead, insist on sticking to quality certified lab equipment manufacturing companies. ISO is a must since it’s an international standard and doesn’t come easily. BIS is nearly mandatory for Indian technical manufacturers these days, as well. For other certifications, look for important quality control stamps like NABL and SEFA. A laboratory supplier with all of these certifications is indeed a formidable ally!

6. Look for a friend.

The process of procuring laboratory items is perhaps one of the most boring and complex jobs school and college principals have to go through. It is a crappy job for the procurement officer too. There is order copy preparation, tender process, bids handling, technical conformation, purchase documentation, and whatever not! And if you have to procure from GeM ‒ oh man, that’s a whole different can of worms!

Look for a company that understands your pain points and wants to help you. There certainly are very few in the education manufacturing industry, but there are some. A good company caring for their customers will hand-hold you throughout the entire procurement process and help you get every documentation done. 

7. Transparency is best.

Sadly, very few manufacturing companies understand the importance of that statement. They separate the customer from the manufacturing or even operations process, and thereby frustrate the customer most annoyingly. Also, it raises the questions of reliability and security.

Don’t fall for words like “you want results, what’s the point of looking for details!” That kind of attitude only indicates that the person has something to hide. A lab equipment supplier who is fully transparent about its sales and operations processes is a real gem to find, and is a pleasure to work with. 

8. Stick to your needs.

One of the major problems with equipment suppliers is that they often try to force their own standards upon the customers. It is hard to find many options with a lab equipment reseller, especially one who agrees with your standards. 

This should not be the case. A customer should not have to change his or her standards just because the supplier doesn’t keep good stock. Instead, look for actual lab equipment manufacturers with a lot of flexibility. How would you know? A flexible seller will listen to you first before listing out his wares. And they will always keep options open for you. Why compromise on your dream laboratory? 

With these in mind…

Building a laboratory is no small task and one has to labor to get things just right. Compromising on the quality of practical education is no longer an option in our fast-developing country, as most first-world countries now prefer hands-on learning over textbooks. Therefore, now it is more important than ever to build your labs properly and renovate existing ones to match the fast-paced future that’s almost upon us.

Keeping that in the equation, we can easily say that finding a good lab equipment supplier becomes one of your priorities these days, which ticks all the boxes as mentioned above. Not to beat our own drums, but Labkafe does conform to all of these standards and then some. Not for nothing have we 1500+ satisfied customers across India and beyond! 

Image courtesy: pexels

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Done properly, a good teacher evaluation system will help the educator immensely in tracking their school’s performance and knowing exactly what changes are needed to improve and which practices to weed out. An opportunity for genuine professional learning, teacher evaluation strategies should be established around functionally tried, tested, and accepted best practices and standards of education.

Why do you need teacher evaluation methods

Teacher assessment helps both teachers and students, and thereby helps the authorities. It can be student-focused, linked to classroom performance, and observing the teachers themselves. The teachers get a good strong understanding of the school’s mission and vision from these appraisals. Depending upon their performance, you can direct them to engage in professional learning programs that they can take up to upgrade their skills and expertise. Not to mention, regular assessments increase personal performance.

With students, it is even more beneficial. First of all, you get to see exactly what they are learning and how it is impacting their cognitive abilities. Secondly, you can feel the pulse of the school from these teacher evaluations ‒ how the class as a whole feels about a teacher, if they are being treated fairly, and if the teacher is being valuable and exemplary to them at all.

For the school management, teacher evaluation systems grant a veritable boon, with multiple facets to benefit from. Such as:

1. Stakeholders can identify and solve institutional issues better by tracking performance levels in the school.
2. School leaders will be better equipped to identify teacher traits and capabilities and therefore can make better decisions about assigning duties and positions.
3. In line with the above, it enables you to reward teachers who perform well and reprimand those who don’t (or replace them if required).
4. This will enable you to identify gaps in between teaching and learning, which is one of the leading causes of poor student performance. 
5. Data is always valuable and teacher evaluation gives you valuable data about various metrics of performance in your school.

Teacher Evaluation Criteria

How to evaluate the teachers’ performance has always been a big question among education industry leaders. The techniques and criteria have been evolving over centuries, and it has become as described below in the modern days.

Effectiveness of planning

A good teacher should follow the prescribed curriculum and lesson plans precisely. They should be using appropriate teaching aids, materials, and resources successfully. They should be able to plan assignments and activities according to the needs and different abilities of the students. They should also be able to group students based on their instructional needs.

Effectiveness of teaching

The teacher should be able to clarify the lesson objective wholly to the students. They should be presenting the concepts clearly and logically and reinforcing them with real-life examples. The teacher should be able to connect each lesson to past and previous lessons, thereby retaining contiguity. While doing all of this, the teacher should command the students’ attention and contain their discipline. They are to gauge students’ performance regularly without bias and provide feedback.

Interaction and Motivation

A teacher should be able to create a learning environment supportive to students that enables them to display initiative and be participative. The teacher should know and understand every student’s background, and handle each one accordingly with concern and empathy. Their tone should be encouraging and supportive in all one-to-one interactions. They need to establish a difficulty level that promotes success.

Subject Matter Expertise

The teacher must be up-to-date with their respective subject and curriculum knowledge, and be abreast of all the recent trends and news of the relevant education world. They should be able to connect current and past affairs and incidents with the subject matter easily, and present the content logically. 

Communication Expertise

The teacher should have clear pronunciation and a commanding voice that easily captures the students’ attention and maintains it. They should have great presentation skills and intone their lessons in an encouraging way. They must also be great listeners and interact fluidly with students. 

Student Assessment Capabilities

The teacher should be able to evaluate the performance of the students regularly and provide feedback accordingly. They should clearly communicate what’s expected of the students, and employ effective assessment techniques. They should provide proper feedback in a timely manner too. 

Class Management Skills

The teacher should be able to maintain discipline in a class effortlessly and promote self-practiced discipline. They must know how to manage disruptive behavior and set clear parameters for good behavior.

Parent and Community Interaction

The teacher should often take part in open communications with the parents about the best interests of their children, and invite them to collaborative activities. The teacher should actively find opportunities for community involvement for their class.

Management and Peer Interaction

As an employee of the school, the teacher should follow all the employment policies of the school and submit all deliverables on time. They should display great team spirit and cooperate well with other teachers. They should be the first to report any incident or anomaly in their line of duty to the management.

Personal & Professional Growth

The teacher should always find ways to continually improve and develop himself or herself through professional workshops, meetings, training programs, peer reviews, and self-appraisal processes. They should associate with professional committees, clubs, or other associations; and continually keep abreast of recent developments in their own field of study.

Teacher Evaluation Techniques

There may be various ways to measure teacher performance, and you can employ any combination of the following. Just remember, your strategy should be reliable, practical, and efficient.

• Classroom observation: Superiors of the teachers or a school management member can sit in a class and directly observe the teacher and his/her way of having a class. There should be some specific questionnaire drawn up as a teacher evaluation form.
• Instructional Artifacts: Management staff can implement structured protocols using classroom artifacts like lesson plans, teacher assignments, assessments, etc. These classroom artifacts can be analyzed to determine teacher effectiveness.
• Peer-based Evaluation: You can assign other teachers to evaluate a teacher’s performance. Specific peer evaluation forms need to be developed for this.
• Self-assessment: This is a great method of letting teachers understand their strengths and weaknesses. They can describe their goals and accomplishments and room for further development.
• Student feedback: Face it, students are the consumers of your product (education), and therefore their feedback is the most important. Conducting regular surveys with students using specialized teacher feedback forms. This process should be conducted away from the teacher and anonymously so that students do not fear victimization.

A Final Note

It goes almost without saying that running a successful school and being famous at it cannot be done without proper teacher evaluation methods. To do this, first the school heads must decide what kind of evaluation would take place, and who would conduct them. Then you should define the parameters for the evaluation and the data collection methods and reliability process. The whole process needs to be kept transparent from the various levels of stakeholders as well. Besides, letting the parents know of the process would be beneficial for the school’s reputation.

Image courtesy: pixabay

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Building or thinking about a new laboratory for your school, institute, or personal use? Since labs don’t fall under any regular or standardized category, figuring one out is rather difficult. But don’t worry! Here we are with a minty-fresh lab equipment buying guide from Labkafe. This article will help you ascertain what lab equipment you need, how much of them do you need, and where to buy lab equipment.

There are always two parts of any laboratory ‒ lab furniture and lab equipment. We have covered  how to buy lab furniture for school labs previously, and even published guides on  laboratory wall decor and  lab flooring . Now this guide to buy equipment for laboratories will help you with lab apparatus, lab glassware, lab instruments, and lab machines.

To be sure, deciding on, procuring, and managing laboratory equipment is difficult work. To make it easier, let’s take baby steps ‒ by beginning at the beginning.

To Start A Laboratory

To begin with, what is the type of laboratory that you need? In India, laboratories vary by their levels. At school levels, you have laboratories of the most common kind ‒ composite labs for class IX-X, and physics, chemistry, and biology labs for class XI-XII. There is also a  mathematics lab for schools that need it. Recently we are seeing developments in labs of other subjects like sociology and geography as well. For even younger students, there is the  STEM lab facility.

When you get to the university level, the picture changes dramatically. There are simply too many different kinds of college labs to mention here, and all of them have different lab equipment and lab instrument needs. We can talk about those separately, another day.

Therefore, let’s assume you’re building a lab for your school. But what exactly is your goal? There are two reasons to buy lab equipment for schools ‒  either to make a new lab for affiliation purposes, or to upgrade an existing laboratory. Either way, you have some hardcore spreadsheet work before you.

Count Your Chickens

This is the part where we deal with the “what I need” matter. Each laboratory has two dimensions ‒ the first is the count of different lab equipment, and the second is their quantity, a derivative of the count of users. You have to chalk up both dimensions.

Let us explain with an example. The CBSE composite lab, for affiliation purposes, has to follow the  NCERT science lab syllabus directly. That some schools choose to make slight adjustments to it is another matter, and you shouldn’t practice this anyway. Be that as it may, the syllabus has 36 different experiments (and variations or sub-work). That requires a whopping 272 different kinds of equipment! Further, as per affiliation rules, a CBSE composite lab has to cater to at least 30 students at once. That takes the count of lab equipment that you will need near half a thousand.

To be sure, ledgering out five hundred lab equipment is no small task and at first you may feel like drowning. Sure, you can try talking to other schools or beg your contacts to get a full list of lab equipment, but they are 1) very hard to come by, 2) people who have them guard them jealously, and 3) there is definitely a trust factor involved here. 

We at Labkafe understand this perfectly, and have a particularly useful solution for this:  lab equipment packages . Labkafe has preconfigured affiliation packages for different labs for all boards (CBSE, ICSE, ISC,  IGCSE, State Boards, etc.) which are handmade to fulfill the respective curriculums precisely and perfectly. If you are interested in building a CBSE composite lab, as per the ongoing example, you can just order a  CBSE composite lab package from us and be worry-free.

But that’s not all. We would not want you to blindly order something just because you read it here. Instead, how about doing some homework about the quality? You should always check the markets to see which brands provide the best quality lab equipment, apparatus, lab aprons, and glassware. Then crosscheck with your chosen vendor to see if they can give you those brands as well. For example, Borosil, Tarsons, and Polylab are the most well-known names in the lab ware industry for quality, and therefore  Labkafe has joined up with them as well.

Laboratory Items come with different quality levels. The regular quality items are cheaper but not much dependable. The superior quality items are the very best, but will cost you a pretty penny. Lab instrument accuracy will depend upon their quality and manufacturer, and the effectiveness of chemicals and other consumables will depend greatly on their brand. 

Choose Your Champion

Once you have your list of lab equipment ready for physics lab, biology lab, chemistry lab, or composite lab (or any other labs for that matter), your next job is to find a proper lab equipment supplier. This is the part with the most amount of original research, since it is a very bad idea to depend upon the first vendor you come across with a simple “lab equipment near me” search. Sure, private references are great too ‒ but it still is just word of mouth, so best do your homework first.

A proper, reliable laboratory equipment supplier will not only be reputed on paper, but they will be able to  prove their references . The salespersons of a genuinely good company will always be ready with connections. The more references you can get, the better. Also check if they have worked with government agencies or institutes ‒ this will prove invaluable.

For a better experience, we recommend that you prefer OEMs over resellers. Original Equipment Manufacturers will provide you better quality at more affordable prices, will give you flexible choices, and what’s most important ‒ will provide you with good aftersales service.

Which brings us to our next point. In the laboratory industry, good aftersales service is as crucial as it is rare. Most vendors work in a fire-and-forget manner and don’t look back to a customer. Which puts the customer at a disadvantage. There are only a very few companies that give true unlimited support and an ironclad warranty. With such a vendor, you can rest assured that your interests are taken care of properly. This, then, should form one of the pillars of your procurement management.

Money Matters

Ah, the budget! It is a painful subject in any society and schools are no exception. One always wants the best for one’s students. Certainly you want your kids to get the most out of their practical education, in compliance with the  National Education Policy 2020 and global trends. 

That being said, one always finds oneself short of budget, right? Your lab equipment list and labware vendor both must conform with the budget; else all is lost. Few opportunities are given to us to extend our budgets, and saying “it’s for the good of the students” doesn’t seem to be a viable option these days. (Or ever.) 

So, here we are chiseling off portions from our procurement list to make it slimmer. With lab equipment, you can do it two ways:

1. Trim out the experiments. Most cheap schools go this way, not choosing to complete the practical syllabus. Only backbenchers will applaud this.
2. Manage the consumables. More often than not, the consumables get a bigger chunk out of the budget than the equipment themselves. For example, test tubes are cheap and you can buy tons of them, but the reagents that go inside them are so prohibitively expensive that many local vendors don’t even stock some of the most important ones. You can work with your vendor to carefully trim out these lab supplies and work out alternatives.

While the need to conform to your budget is necessary, a word to the wise. The really good stuff in this world never comes cheap ‒ and we should never compromise on education. Reaching a good platform between quality and price is key to your lab’s success ‒ and the future of anyone who uses it.

Another way to save is to buy things in packs. Instead of buying items separately, you would find it much more profitable to buy lab packages and lab aprons packs. Of course, everyone has local choices and needs, and that may force your hand. It would be best if your lab equipment supplier provides customizable lab packages, offering you room to maneuver as well as cost savings. 

In A Nutshell

Making a new laboratory for a school is never easy, and it is even harder for new schools. Today we tried to make the process easier by offering you this lab equipment buying guide. Long story short: list out exactly what you need, find a reputed seller, and hash out a good price eyeing your budget. 

Checking out the equipment (especially the glassware) when they get delivered is a great idea too. A good lab equipment seller will do this onsite inspection automatically and should provide free replacements if anything came out wrong while unpacking. Additionally, Labkafe also gives free installation services, in tune with our vision to spread accessible lab education to every corner of the country.

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Humans have five senses, and hearing is probably the second most important sense. Hearing forms a big part of how we perceive the world, how we learn about events, and above all, how we communicate. In a classroom, good auditory conditions lead to a better understanding of the teacher’s words, faster recognition, and wiser students. A noisy classroom is just the opposite.

What is Classroom Acoustics?

The term “acoustics” means how sound travels through a given space, though it is too much of a simplification. Better acoustics, in general, makes sounds clearer and easier to understand and differentiate from each other. Bad acoustics will make sounds feel jumbled, hard to separate, and in general more confusing than pleasant. It also means how ‘nice’ a sound may feel in your ear, and how much noise is present there.

But what is noise in a classroom? At first thought, a teacher may think that noise in the classroom just means students talking. While that’s not wrong per se, it is so smaller than the real picture. For example, the teacher’s own words bouncing off the walls and ceiling can also create noise. 

Generally speaking, there are two kinds of noises in a classroom ‒ background noise and reverberation.

Background noise

This is a term that means any sound that causes distraction and confusion with the sound you intend to hear clearly. There can be many sources of background noise in a classroom, such as:

1. Other students talking in the room
2. People talking in the hall outside the room
3. Voices from other classrooms adjoining yours
4. Vehicle sounds coming from the street or road outside the building
5. Machine sounds like AC or fans

Reverberation

This term describes how a sound wave behaves when it is generated. Sound has a very reflective nature like light. It bounces off walls and ceilings and floors. That isn’t a problem with light since light is very fast ‒ but sound is quite slow and a reflected sound comes to your ears AFTER the original sound. This causes confusion in our brain’s auditory processing center. If there are many different sounds reverberating at once, then these sound waves will compliment each other and add up to large magnitudes. Meaning, this will get very loud and almost drown out the original.

The two kinds of noises as stated above are not mutually exclusive ‒ they can team up and make a classroom very disturbing indeed. Large schools beside busy roads with lots of students often face this problem, and sooner or later they have to take some action. Why?

Importance of Good Acoustics in Classrooms

A classroom with poor acoustics causes a lot of problems, not limited to just understanding the teacher’s communication. In fact, that alone causes quite a few issues by itself, but there are others as well. 

Poor acoustics causes issues

A student’s learning and behavior depend heavily on how well the teacher’s words go into his or her brain. If that pathway is disturbed, the student will definitely have issues, such as:

• Understanding ‒ if the student has difficulty understanding the teacher’s words, the whole purpose of the class is in danger of failing.
• Linguistics ‒ with difficulty in hearing, the students will find it hard to read text and spell words as well. It stunts their cognitive development.
• Behavior ‒ with their attention not focused on the teacher’s thread of control, the students will get restless and may show disrespectful behavior.
• Attention span ‒ the young age already has a short attention span, and the acoustic distraction only makes it worse.
• Concentration ‒ with lots of background noise it is hard to concentrate on one thing, as we know well.

Keeping the classroom quiet and echo-free solves good portions of these problems and you get a more focused, more attentive, and better-performing audience in your class.

The issue gets worse when a student has problems of his or her own that affect the understanding and perception of the student. For example, a quiet and calm classroom is mandatory is for students who have any of the following problems:

• Hearing issues ‒ if a student already has full or partial hearing loss in an ear, a confusing classroom environment is way more tiring for them.
• Ear issues ‒ having infections or fluid in the ear causes problems with hearing and compounds the discomfort in a room with bad acoustics.
• Learning disability ‒ going undiagnosed by the thousands, many children already have problems with learning. Let’s not add to it by jumbled teacher speech.
• APD ‒ the Auditory Processing Disorder is fairly common these days (about 3%), where people have difficulty processing the words they hear. This increases exponentially with garbled speech or the presence of background noise.
• Speech or language delay ‒ some children take more time developing their speech and understanding language. They suffer a lot if they can’t hear the teacher properly.
• Attention deficit ‒ as we said above, it is hard to concentrate in an environment with lots of noise and reverb.

Advantages of good classroom acoustics

A classroom environment with a good acoustic arrangement where the teacher’s words get conveyed to each student clearly and softly is the best learning environment, audibly speaking. This offers the following benefits:

1. Clear speech commands attention. In a quiet classroom, your words carry weight to every student and demand that they listen. 
2. Faster teaching. A word well heard is a word sooner learned.
3. Less burden on students. If they can hear you well, they will have less trouble processing your subject.
4. Easy on troubled students. If your class has one or more students who have physical issues as mentioned above, then a calm, quiet classroom will be a blessing for them.
5. Saves the teacher. In a quiet and acoustically well-designed classroom, the teacher does not have to shout to get himself or herself heard, thereby saving her vocal cords.
6. Saves time. If the students can hear you fine the first time, you will obviously have a very low need of repeating yourself.
7. Better class performance. When your students can learn more easily, they learn better and consequently perform better at exams, and later in life.

All that above, and we can’t discount the fact that a quiet and soft-sounding workplace is good for the mental health of the teachers as well.

How to Improve Classroom Acoustics

It should come as a no-brainer that when you start building a school classroom you should already be thinking about the acoustics. How a room is built and furnished goes right into its acoustics. But if you are trying to improve the acoustics of an existing classroom, here are some stuff you can try out.

• The floor reflects a lot of the sound since it is closer to the student’s ears. If furnishing permits, try covering the exposed floor with rugs or mats or other kinds of semi-soft floor coverings as much as possible. They will absorb the noise nicely.
• The windows are a good source of background noise. Hang heavy curtains and utilize electricity for illumination instead.
• Try not to use noisy equipment and machines as much as possible, and do get the damn fan oiled!
• Sound waves find easy pathways in a neatly ordered room. So, place the benches in angled order so that the sound can’t find enough straight surfaces.
• If possible, cover the walls in foam as well, to make them very sound-resistant. If done cleverly, it can actually be a nice decoration as well.
• The furniture also makes noise ‒ get them repaired and place them on soft pods so that there aren’t any scraping noises.
• Even after all that, the classroom can still be quite noisy simply due to students talking and being generally children. Resolve this by taking special classes on classroom etiquette and discipline. 

A Parting Word

Poor listening conditions create a negative learning environment for students, that’s beyond doubt. Simple tasks like understanding instructions, reading unfamiliar material or trying to understand basic concepts can become unnecessarily hard just due to incessant background noise and speech reverberation. All of that can be mostly negated with some simple measures as stated above. A quiet classroom with clear speech carrying through is a blessing that will cure many problems at once, and increase students’ performance to boot. 

Need a Free Lab Consultation? Get in touch with our experts now!

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A school lab consumes various kinds of materials, like lab glassware, equipment, chemicals, support items, and so on. All of these have certain quality standards ‒ you can’t just buy something off the street and expect good results. For example, the reagents you use in your chemistry and biology labs come in various qualities, and almost certainly the cheaper one from the street is little more than colored water. This is why you need a trustworthy laboratory item vendor like Labkafe.

1. Nationally and Internationally Certified

Labkafe, the company and its products and services are recognized by many top-tier national and international quality control organizations like the ISO, BIS, SEFA, NABL, GreenGuard, and lots more. These certificates enable you to recognize our brand and products as the very best quality available in the Indian market. When you buy from Labkafe, you can rest assured that your goods are durable, will give good results and you have gotten your money’s worth.

2. Over 1500 Satisfied Customers

Ever since its inception in 2015, Labkafe has been steadily supplying  lab furniture ,  lab equipment , and  lab consumables . We have come far wading through a mass of customers, over fifteen hundred in number in these short seven years. We have left footprints all over India in every state, even overseas, and we connect to resellers to supply even foreign schools and colleges. And you know what? None of these customers have ever turned their backs on us!

3. Prestigious Customers Everywhere

We do not discriminate among customers ‒ everyone is the same with us. Yet, we are proud to have served a large number of high-profile clientele. We have belted in government schools like APSs, JNVs, KVs, and Sainik Schools. We have worked with prestigious colleges and universities like IITs and NITs. We have supplied scientific celebrity organizations like DRDO and ONGC. And we enjoy the patronage of a lot of well-known private institutes like Techno India and Don Bosco. With a portfolio full of such prestigious accounts, we have little if any competition.

4. Strong Presence on GeM

As you may know, government organizations are compelled to procure lab supplies only from the  Government e-Marketplace . And Labkafe is like a beacon there, a  registered OEM on GeM . Present as Orientallabs Retail Services Pvt Ltd in the GeM portal, we provide the best prices and pass every specification check, winning bid after bid. And you know, you can trust who GeM trusts.

5. Fully Customized Lab Design ‒ For Free

Labkafe is famous for our custom lab solutions! Unlike other suppliers, we do not force you to match with our products ‒ instead, we adapt to your requirements. Our engineers will visit your facility and take note of your existing infrastructure. Then we will bring up a plan in 2D and 3D as fits, to show you how your lab could be. You can then customize it at your heart’s content. And guess what? All of this is free of cost!

6. Free Installation and Demonstration

Don’t you just hate it when they deliver the packages and it just sits there waiting for you to dirty your hands? Unlike other vendors or manufacturers, we do not forget the client after the sale is done. Our engineers and technicians will visit your site, open the packs, reconcile the delivered items to the order copy, and then install the equipment and consumables where needed. You won’t have to lift a single finger!

7. Great Warranty Values

We make it, we sell it, we fix it. Our all-encompassing warranty gives you full protection from any accidental damages and other unforeseen quality issues that may arise. We will respect your every concern and we will try to fix any problems with our products. All our products come with ironclad warranty clauses in agreement with all business laws.

8. Awesome Aftersales Support

We pride ourselves on serving our customers faithfully! Our aftersales support team will listen to your every concern patiently and offer solutions that are dependable and minimum hassle. We remember and serve our customers even years after the warranty period, since we know the value of goodwill. 

9. Full Technical Assistance

Procuring school lab supplies can be a complicated thing, especially if you have to do it through GeM. Don’t worry! Our experts will be with you from start to finish, hand-holding you through every step of the procurement procedure. We will prepare all documentation for you, provide remote assistance through Anydesk, and make the whole process smooth and silky for you ‒ on or off GeM.

10. Doorstep Delivery at Any Pincode

That’s right, we deliver anywhere! No longer will you have to suffer handling half of the logistics yourself ‒ we will do it no matter wherever you are in India. We have served schools and institutes in the remotest locations, working through the worst kind of situations. We have delivered perfectly intact lab solutions to customers through landslides, political turmoil, storms, and droughts, day or night, at borders and on icy roads. You cannot depend upon the weather forecast ‒ but you can depend on our delivery truck.

To Pack It Up

All those proud services and excellence, and yet we managed to keep our prices down. This is possible because our vision, which is to see every child have access to affordable laboratory education, is priceless! Our NIT-alumni-founded company is doing more than just business ‒ it is changing the very backbone of educational infrastructure in India. 

We wish to become the face of practical education in the country, to become a story, a name to swear by. Come, join the movement! Add your school or institution to the list of future-proof labs. Be a part of tomorrow!

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The success of any school depends heavily on attracting more and more students ‒ especially early on near the foundation of the institution. At the core of that there should be a great marketing strategy that understands the target market and acts accordingly. Today, we will talk about how to bring more students to school. Read on to know more about how to increase enrollment and how to increase admission in school.

To be frank, marketing for schools is not that much different from marketing for other services. At the beginner level, all you have to do is to stick to the basics of marketing. Which are:

• Clearly define the value of your product or service.
• Research who your target audience is and how best to reach them.
• Throw your value proposition at this target market using your marketing campaigns.

Now, what does that mean for a school? Let’s explore.

Defining your product value

The best way to begin your strategy to bring more students to your school is to start by defining the advantages of joining your school. Identify what makes you unique, and what should attract students (and parents). Every school is different with different history and culture ‒ and so define yours. Some unique factors in your school could be:

1. Your faculty ‒ what about the people who make up the school, who shall be in constant contact with the students all the time?
2. Your students ‒ yes, they are marketing resources too! What makes them special, and what are they doing better than most others?
3. How about having a famous sports team or winning a math marathon?
4. If your school is religious in nature, what values and virtues does it teach?
5. What is the culture of your school? Tie it up with point #4.
6. Learning techniques ‒ does your school use any special approaches that you can boast about? Like a state-of-the-art laboratory or a science park?
7. Technology usage ‒ in the information era, the more modern a school is in terms of technology, the more attractive it will be.
8. Special programs ‒ does your school offer the advantages of a special learning opportunity? It may be within or after the course.
9. Placement assist ‒ if applicable, how much guarantee will you give to place your students in the job market?
10. Finance ‒ in the end, money is the biggest deciding factor. What financial assistance are you giving? What are you giving for FREE?

Find your target market

You are offering a precise service useful only to a certain section of the population. Therefore, figuring out the perfect demographic for your marketing strategy is paramount, or else you’ll be preaching to the wrong crowd. Start with the basics of demography, like,

• Age group ‒ which age people should you target.
• Physical location ‒ shouldn’t they be located locally? 
• Gender ‒ applicable if your school is hosting only one gender.

Add to this some advanced concerns of your customers:

• What are their life goals, and what are they looking for as the outcome of this education?
• Do they have a dominant reason to choose your school over another (like locality)?
• Do they fulfill the prerequisites for admission to your school?
• What income group are their families and how can they pay for their education?

Buyer Personas

A very important factor comes here in the form of buyer personas. Buyer personas are detailed imaginary personal profiles you create for your standard customer. It will include as much pertinent information about the imaginary person as possible, like past education and family culture and political leaning and food habits, and even when do they go to sleep and how much time they spend on Facebook.

This detailed profile will help you and all other stakeholders to understand your customers quickly and help enormously in decision-making. Obviously, there are many kinds of people with many backgrounds, and so you may have to build two-three personas ‒ for example, one for each stakeholder member of the family. Like, one persona of the prospective student, one persona for his/her father, and one for the mother. Then you will know the life and habits of each of them and you can target them individually, taking a holistic approach to generating a lead.

To do this efficiently, proper market research is necessary. If you have the budget for it, your best bet is to get an agency to do the market survey for you. Otherwise, you can do it by brainstorming with your staff and do it by trial-and-error, but that doesn’t guarantee much good in the result.

Build school marketing campaigns

Depending upon your school’s scope and your target market, your market strategy may differ a lot. But for a standard case, the following marketing strategies give good ROI (Return On Investment).

Word-of-mouth marketing

It may sound dusty and rusty for the new-age school principal, but don’t ignore the power of word of mouth. Ask for referrals. Utilize those elements of your school that are directly connected to the community, like existing students, teachers, non-teaching staff, parents even. Let them tell the story about your school and inform the community about your culture, your courses, your certifications, and programs. This self-run method of marketing is awesomely targeted and gets great results if you can do it enough.

Digital marketing

This is the digital era and most of your target audience will be online. Therefore, your website is one of the best channels of generating more enrollment. Do make sure your school website is not just an information page, but is actually designed to generate interest in your school. Also ensure your website is created with mobile users in mind, for obvious reasons.

Once you get a proper website up, it is time to promote that website in the proper circles. Make sure your site offers interesting information regularly via a blog or social media (or both, preferably). Get an agency to do SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to stay on top of the search page. You may be sure that your competitor already sitting on top of the search result page is indubitably doing it. 

One of the easiest ways to get to the top of the google search results page is to use PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising. It does cost you a pretty penny, but it will give you great results if done expertly.

Social Media Marketing

Everybody is on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. these days. Your target audience ‒ especially the younger generation ‒ spends a big chunk of their day on social media. And that’s why you should target that time as much as possible. Figure out what they do all that time on each platform, and post interesting stuff with your school name in those areas. Much like erecting a banner on the road, your social posts should be right where eyeballs go most. 

One of the best ways to do effective social media marketing is to spread user-generated content out there. Do encourage your staff and students and parents to write about or take pictures inside the school and facilities, and share them on their own profiles and in various pertinent groups they have. 

Don’t forget to show off your school on social media. Make sure your social media profiles ‒ especially on LinkedIn ‒ are well optimized and full of bright and interesting posts about your school, culture, events, facilities, etc. Just get the message out that what a heaven this place is for the students and that will be a great hook. 

Offline Marketing

Don’t ignore the power of traditional marketing methods now that we’re in the digital era. Roadside advertisements, commercial media ads, and even leaflets and handbills work well in increasing brand awareness and generating leads. Just make sure your content for all this is powerful and engaging, and pushes your selling points powerfully across verticals. 

Email & Post Marketing

Few marketing strategies work better than the direct approach BTL (Below-the-Line) marketing. If you have a good list of potential customers, then why not reach out and make a personal touch? Use email marketing and send old-fashioned posts with brochures attached. This will require some expense but gives good, personal-level connects which are very valuable. And you know what, some people in fact prefer it this way ‒ they don’t like the impersonal nature of advertisements.

Public Events

Participating in or organizing public events is a great way to increase the reputation and generate more leads. You can join existing prestigious and popular competitions, seminars, online events, etc., or if budget permits, create your own. Do remember to offer some incentives to the attendees, and do make sure your event offers something worth their time. If you are able to feature something or someone particularly notorious in these events, then your school’s reputation and popularity will skyrocket in a night.

Tips to get more students for your school

Make sure your facilities are top-notch

It is a no-brainer that to sell a product successfully, the product itself has to be really good. The same goes for school education as well. Your teaching will depend upon the faculties, of course, but other than that, make sure you can dazzle parents with your school facilities. Your library should be comfy and well-stocked, your laboratories should be futuristic and perfectly equipped, your sports facilities should be spacious and healthy, and so on and so forth.

• Learn how to build a proper CBSE/ICSE lab .

Don’t forget your existing students

Just because they have already bought your pitch doesn’t mean your work with your present students and their parents have finished! Make sure your present clientele hears from you regularly. Make sure that these communications are valuable. And for the love of god, don’t communicate once a year just to ask for more money!

Instead, find out what is valuable to them and find ways to offer them that. It can be something directly or indirectly related to school, no matter, as long as they see that you do care for their needs they will remain impressed with you. An impressed customer is a loyal customer and will work for free to get more customers for you voluntarily.

Make the best offer in the market

Yes yes, you are enlightening the community, building the educational backbone of the nation, and all that ‒ but at the end of the day, by sober reckoning, you are still only doing business. And only that business grows which makes the best offer in the market. To that end, make sure your offer is SUBSTANTIAL as compared to your nearest competitors. 

Your pricing strategy and your products are what are going to give you that competitive edge, when expertly managed. You can become a haven for the LIG (Lower Income Group) with your radically low fee structure, or you can offer awesome scholarships and placement opportunities. There are plenty more to explore here, and your limit is your imagination.

Get some testimonials

People love references from other people. They have a strong urge to believe reviews they read online. And they do not trust things with no reviews and testimonials. Why not take advantage of this fact and build on people’s trusting nature? Get some good testimonials up and running on your website, emails, social media posts, brochures, etc. 

Numbers work magic

If you are dealing with MIG and HIG parents most, you are encountering parents who are very analytical customers and just love data. So make sure all your customer-facing media has lots of nice-looking statistics on them. Throwing juicy fat numbers at customers is a good way to hook them. 

For example, think about speakers. When you want one, don’t you first look for its wattage? And this number is what makes and breaks most speaker sales. The same principle works for schools as well. Let prospective students and their parents know about your school capacity, existing student number, graduation rates, and other KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and you will be sure to impress a lot of good minds out there.

In a nutshell

Getting a good school filled is a big task that has to be approached thoughtfully and through multiple avenues of marketing and internal work. The key to success here is to punch a really good infrastructure and service with good old offline marketing and the new-era online marketing strategies. 

Figure out who should hear you and make them offers they cannot resist, in the most enticing manner you can think of. Repeat your USPs (Unique Selling Points) in front of multiple audiences, through multiple channels. Pay attention and further offer opportunities to your existing students. Combining all, your school will bring in new enrollments so much that soon you will eventually get to pick and choose your students.

Image courtesy: pixabay

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As the nation becomes greater, the education system is evolving with time as well. As per the National Education Policies that we have brought in, practical education is taking the front gradually. And to implement proper practical education in your school, you will need a good science lab equipment list to shop for. Today, we will talk about 20 must-have school lab equipment for CBSE/ICSE affiliation.

Every student has a fond memory of their first practical class experience. Do you remember yours? The odd room in the building full of weird-looking equipment and glassware, the confusing smell, and students actually working with their hands instead of just poring over books! From secondary to senior secondary levels, a student gets to experience one of the most important aspects of education ‒ hands-on learning. 

Learning to recognize all the basic lab equipment and apparatus is paramount to this lands-on approach to education. They form the base of all future lab work, be it in school labs, colleges, universities, research labs, medical labs, or even in fieldwork for scientific research work. This is why it is important that every student learns to recognize the following lab equipment, apparatus, and glassware and know how to use them properly.

20 Common Lab Equipment List

1. Microscope

Probably the most iconic in the laboratory industry, a microscope lets you see things so small that they cannot be seen normally by the human eye. In school labs they use standard compound microscopes, also known as light microscopes. 

A light microscope or compound microscope enlarges the virtual image of the specimen you want to view using two strong convex lenses poised one over the other. Their working principle comes from the refraction of light. The other parts of a microscope perform various duties such as holding the lenses and controlling their movement, holding the sample, providing illumination, etc.

Learn how a microscope works in this blog .

2. Test Tubes

Another iconic piece of lab equipment, the test tube is the most commonly used glassware in almost every wet lab in the world. They are small tubes with one end open and the other end closed, about a finger wide, and are generally made of borosilicate glass. 

Test tubes have a bewildering variety in shapes and sizes, but the most common version you will see is like the above. These are standard lab test tubes of 150mm by 18mm size, and you can do most chemistry and biochemistry experiments with these. Another common version of test tubes is the stubby plastic ones you see in pathology labs, called sample collection tubes.

• Learn more about test tubes here .

3. Beakers

What would a chemistry lab be without a beaker? These multipurpose glass vessels are easy to handle and easy to clean. They are glass cylinders with a flat bottom and straight sides. The opening may or may not have a lip to facilitate easy pouring. Beakers come in every size from tiny 20 ml cups to liter-sized buckets, and everything in between ‒ but 250-500 ml beakers are most common.

Beakers are very much favored in labs because of their ease of use. With the flat bottom and straight sides, they are very stable on most surfaces and best for boiling stuff safely; and with the large opening, you can pour things in or out of it, or stir the contents. However, that large opening also makes it unsuitable for storage purposes – use flasks for that.

4. Magnifying Glass

When you need to see tiny objects (that are still too big to fit under a microscope), what you need is this ancient magical device that magnifies anything you hold under it. A magnifying glass has a large convex lens that creates the enlarged vision, and a steel frame with a wooden or plastic handle that holds the magnifying lens.

A magnifying glass works with the principle of virtual image creation due to the refraction of light. The centerpiece of a magnifying glass is a convex lens (a round slab of glass fat in the center and progressively slender towards the edges). When light passes through it, a larger-than-life image of the objective is created behind it, which we see from the other side of the glass. The wooden or plastic handle, attached to the lens with a metal or plastic rim, helps you to hold the magnifying glass steadily.

5. Volumetric Flask

When you need to measure liquids, there are few better options in the school chemistry lab than the volumetric flask. It is a glass container with a large belly and narrow neck that is crafted to a precise volume. They come in different sizes, from 100 ml to a liter. Each is calibrated to hold a precise amount of liquid at a given temperature.

The large bulbous body in the bottom, which may or may not have a flat bottom, holds the most amount of liquid. The side may be marked with a graduated scale to measure exactly how much liquid is there in the flask. Volumetric flasks are generally used in chemistry laboratories to make standard solutions, with the help of  precision balances . Other than that, you can also store liquids in them for a long time.

6. Bunsen Burner

Introducing every lab dweller’s favorite fire-maker! This valuable lab apparatus produces a single, clean flame using LPG or propane (though LPG is much safer) gas. The flame is very useful in various heating and sterilization purposes in a lab. A laboratory often needs a lot of things heated or boiled, and a bunsen burner was tailor-made for this purpose. It runs on easily available fuel and can reach a fairly respectable temperature, unlike a spirit lamp.

The bunsen burner produces a single clean, steady, sootless flame of high temperature, and that’s why it is so well-favored in laboratories. It is relatively safe to use when used with caution. Most burners are connected by gas hoses to a single distribution point on a  lab workbench , which includes internal plumbing for the gas distribution network.

7. Dropper

Also known as the Pasteur pipette, the dropper is a very common apparatus used not only in laboratories but also in everyday homes. It has a small long cylindrical body made of glass or pipe with a narrow nozzle at one end, and a soft rubber bulb mounted on the other side. You can use this to take up some liquid and slowly drip it down in another place. 

Pipettes are the big brothers of droppers and you can take up larger amounts of liquids in them. Both pipettes and droppers have special cleaning procedures, and you will need a bit of training before you can properly use them in a laboratory safely. 

8. Thermometer

Many experiments depend greatly on the precise temperature, so you need a thermometer to measure that out. Some experiments require a certain temperature range before anything can happen, or the intended reaction can take place. In this case, you have to dip a thermometer in there to see if you have reached that temperature or not. 

The thermometers that we generally use in laboratories are analog types, though there are digital versions out there as well. It is a pencil-thin tube of clear glass with graduated temperature readings with a hairline bore through its middle through which the indicator liquid rises. It works on the principle of thermal expansion of liquids. 

9. Tongs

Perhaps not as glorified as other lab equipment and apparatus, the tongs are still very much important once you face the situation. Many fingers have burned due to careless handling of hot or dangerous substances in labs. Tongs are used to grasp and lift hot glassware and apparatus, and other hard substances. Therefore, make it a habit to handle things with tongs unless you are absolutely sure otherwise.

Strictly speaking, tongs are not exactly a lab safety apparatus, but they indeed save you from a lot of harm. There are two kinds of tongs used in labs – larger ones with a hinge, and small tweezers. Both are coated with non-reactive material so that they can resist corrosion up to a certain extent.

10. Brushes

Not many people know it, but cleaning things are one of the biggest portions of everyday lab life. Keeping glassware and apparatus clean is the first step to achieving precision and perfection. For this purpose, all labs have different sizes and types of brushes to clean lab apparatus and glassware. The bottle brush is the most common since it can fit through the narrow mouths of long narrow glass vessels.

Though brushes are cleaning apparatus, don’t forget to clean the brushes themselves after your cleaning spree! Otherwise, next time you try to clean something with the same brush it will get dirtier instead. What’s worse, if the substances are reactive, then you may be looking at a potential accident. So, clean your cleaning equipment too – it makes sense.

11. Weighing machines

When performing experiments in chemistry or biology laboratories, we sometimes have to deal with very small but precise amounts of chemicals. Normal balances are unable to measure to that precision, so we use electronic balances and weighing machines. When you need to measure the exact amount of a reagent or a solute (mostly in the case of preparing standard solutions), use a proper electronic balance.

There are two kinds of lab weighing machines – precision balances and analytical balances. Precision balances are the most common and they can measure milligrams. Analytical balances are, however, so sensitive that even air currents can disturb them. This is why they have a glass box enclosure over the weighing plate. Analytical balances can measure parts of micrograms.

12. Wash bottles

Remember what we said about cleaning laboratory things before? The wash bottle is another important cleaning apparatus that you may have to use every lab session. They are soft plastic bottles with long thin nozzles that can squirt cleaning fluid into glassware to dissolve stubborn substances and gunk that form inside after experiments.

Wash bottles come in various shapes and sizes as well, just like most lab glassware and plasticware. The 100 ml and 250 ml sizes are the most common. They generally contain distilled or deionized water, or in case of worse gunk, ethanol.

13. Spatula

So, you have lots of salts and bases in various jars ‒ but how do you pick them up, using your bare hands? That’s never a good idea, you know. That is why we use steel spatulas. They are like spoons, really, with a flattened spade-like end. 

These spatulas are generally made of stainless steel, so they are mostly resistant to chemical effects. The scoop end helps to scoop up material, while the spade end helps to break up large blocks of crystallized substance.

14. Spring balance

Also known as the Newton balance, this is another useful object in measuring weights of rather larger objects. The spring balance is basically a strong spring hanging from a holder loop with a hook at the bottom end. The spring is encased in a long plastic case with a scale and indicator. As you hang a weight on the hook, the spring stretches and the indicator stuck to the spring moves to show the value of the mass on the scale.

A spring balance works on the principle of Hooke’s law. According to that, the force applied to the spring is directly proportional to the spring’s extension (under the elastic limit, of course). The spring, the hook, and the holder are all made of stainless steel, generally. They come in various strengths ‒ some are soft enough to measure mere tens of grams, and some can lift tens of kilos.

15. Burette

A burette is a long glass tube with a stopcock at the bottom ending in a small nozzle, and the other end open. The sides of a burette are generally graduated with a printed scale to show how much liquid the burette is holding. The apparatus cannot stand on its own; it must be supported by a clamp on a stand.

The burette has one great purpose ‒ to slowly add a precise amount of liquid to another apparatus. Many reactions require careful adding of precise amounts of liquid ‒ think of titration where you have to slowly add acid or base to a standard solution till you get full equilibrium. The stopcock handles the task beautifully! But do remember to clean the apparatus carefully after each use.

16. Watch glass

Most commonly found in the chemistry laboratory, this is just a concave round piece of glass. You can keep some solids here for easy access, evaporate liquids, and heat a tiny amount of solution or substance (often used to make anhydrous versions of salts).

17. Funnels

You know funnels, we know funnels, everybody knows funnels. This household apparatus is quite well available in most laboratories since you have to often pour liquids and powders in narrow-mouthed containers like test tubes and flasks. 

Though quite common in households, a chemistry lab should have quite some different types of funnels. There is the standard conical funnel, which you can turn into a filter funnel by adding a filter paper. There is the thistle funnel for special purposes, and there is also the dropping funnel for rather precise work.

18. Ammeter

One of the most common instruments a physics lab cannot do without is the ammeter. Since most electricity-related experiments need to measure the current flowing through a circuit, the ammeter comes out of the box quite often (or doesn’t go in at all in busier places).

An ammeter is a galvanometer with almost no resistance put in series to the circuit. Ideally, the ammeter should not have any resistance at all, but in reality, there is always just a little bit of resistance there. 

• Learn more about ammeters here .

19. Crucible

Sometimes, in a chemistry lab, you will have to heat a substance at a very high temperature ‒ with such heat that glass will surely melt. In this case, you can’t use standard glassware, obviously. You have to use a crucible, which is basically a small porcelain bowl. 

A porcelain crucible can withstand such temperatures that you can even melt most soft metals in it. Though you have to handle them carefully all the time (duh), they come in very handy at high-heat reactions. Beware of a crucible sitting alone somewhere ‒ it can look innocent but be scaldingly hot.

20. Litmus and filter papers

Though they are not lab instruments per se, they are still very much needful lab consumables used almost every day. There are many experiments that require filtration and almost any reaction including acids or bases requires a pH value reading. These two little things come in very handy in these matters.

When a given liquid has some solid stuff floating around in it, your best bet is to run the liquid through a filter paper using a funnel, thus the solid part will be blocked by the filter paper and the liquid will pass through. And dip a litmus paper in almost any liquid to see how acidic or alkaline that is. 

In conclusion

This list of 20 common lab equipment and apparatus will come in very handy if you are trying to build a composite or science lab in your school. They are used in almost any laboratory and everybody taking a scientific career should learn how to use these lab apparatus and equipment properly. Labkafe has these in almost every lab package they sell, just write to  sales@labkafe.com to find out how much they cost.

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Are you applying for CBSE, ICSE, or IGCSE affiliation? Or perhaps planning to construct an affiliated school? In either case, designing a compliant and functional science lab is essential.

Here, we share five key tips on how to design a science lab for schools that meets all educational board requirements and optimizes student learning.

Indian education boards—including CBSE, ICSE, IGCSE, IB, and various State boards—have specific guidelines for setting up school labs. This guide will help you navigate the rules and create an effective science lab environment.

Tip 1: Begin Science Lab Design with Early Planning

A laboratory is a critical asset in schools, as it provides hands-on learning, a fast-growing educational approach worldwide. To start, consider these foundational aspects:

• Location: Labs on the top floor offer good ventilation but may require extra safety considerations. Ground-floor labs are often preferred for easier access to utility lines and greater safety.
• Room Size: Most board affiliations specify a minimum lab size (often around 600 square feet), which should accommodate lab furniture, storage, and space for around 30 students, along with the teacher and lab assistant’s workspaces.

Before choosing a location or size, decide how many and what types of labs are needed. Labs can vary from composite science labs for secondary students to specialized labs for physics, chemistry, and biology. Schools might also benefit from adding geography, math, or social sciences labs.

There are four kinds of labs in school ‒

1. Composite (science) lab for secondary level
2. Physics labs
3. Chemistry labs
4. Biology labs

There can also be laboratories for geography, math, and social sciences if you choose to add them to your school (they really do matter!).

Tip 2: Hire a Professional Science Lab Designer

It is lucrative to think that one can do all the designs on their own, or maybe the builder or architect of the school has all the answers. Don’t make that mistake ‒ it never pays well. Instead, call up a professional lab design company like Labkafe to help design your lab. 

They will send experts to measure out the space, note down room features like doors and windows, and come up with a floor plan perfectly suitable for your lab room. Once you get these plans, you will far better understand what should go where and complicated matters such as foot traffic control and ventilation and utility linings. Our experts will explain everything.

Tip 3: Don’t put down utility lines yet.

Your first impulse may be to get the utility lines in the room first (like water, electricity, LPG, drainage) and then build the lab accordingly. This makes things unnecessarily complicated and difficult. Instead, a better idea would be to call up the lab design company first, let them design the space, and then lay the pipes as they instruct. Then do the finishing of the room as fits.

For example, your builder or architect will most probably insert the gas line through a corner in the floor, and put only one switch box with internal wiring beside the door. This is horribly wrong and creates a lot of extra work. 

In reality, a wet lab would require gas lines coming down from framework overhead, and internal wiring in the wall right beside each lab workbench unit. If your lab needs island tables isolated in the middle, then wiring and plumbing has to be done through the floor. Obviously, you can’t do these unless you get the design made first.

Tip 4: Make it safe.

We can’t stress this point enough ‒ lab safety takes paramount importance in lab design. By law you are required to provide adequate safety equipment, ventilation, and evacuation route/training in every laboratory you will build. 

To that end, your lab designer must advise you about crucial points such as safety equipment placement and training, foot traffic control, and ventilation. You’ll need fire extinguishers, eye wash, first aid kit, etc.

We can’t put our kids’ lives to chance ‒ we have to make sure the labs are safe even with human error.

Tip 5: Get certified lab equipment.

Perhaps this goes beyond saying, but it is kind of obvious that you won’t get results if you buy lab equipment from the cheap local market. First of all, there are so many of them! Just building the list of lab equipment, apparatus, glassware, support items, and consumables you will need to cover the syllabus for a single lab is a gigantic and thankless task.

But there is an easy yet reliable solution for that. Look for  lab equipment packages on sale. We have preconfigured affiliation packages that conform to each board syllabuses. These packages bundle everything you need for the affiliation together and so this way you can leave off the extra headache. What’s more, you can also customize these packages if you wish to add or remove something.

Even more important, get your equipment only from a certified manufacturer. A manufacturer always provides better service than a third-party supplier, and better warranties and aftersales support as well. Also check for their certification. A proper lab equipment company will be ISO certified at least. Look for other certificates like BIS, SEFA, NABL etc. as well ‒ the more quality certificates a company has, the more trustworthy their products are.

Finishing Touches

Obviously, the above is not all ‒ far from it. There is the whole purchase/procurement procedure, paperwork, receiving the shipment and overseeing the installation, and checking out if everything is okay or not. A good lab infrastructure supplier should help you in each and every step of the whole cycle, making your experience as fluid as possible. 

At the end of the day, our target remains to make affordable quality practical education accessible to all children. Our skilled organization is geared towards this vision, serving one prestigious institute after another, glowing strong while providing a robust backbone to the educational infrastructure of the country.

The post How to Design A Science Lab for Schools? appeared first on Labkafe Blog.