The Birmingham Institute for Forest Research (BIFoR) is home to the BIFoR FACE facility, one of the world's largest climate change experiments where 150 parts per million extra of carbon dioxide is added to areas of the oak forest, to predict the impact on the ecosystem 50 years into the future.

BIFoR has...

In this project, students make their own aspirin or paracetamol and then test the purity of the pain-reliever and compare it to shop-bought.  This covers titrations, chromatography and other analytical techniques.

The aim of this project is to investigate the properties of alcohol/water mixtures, and how these properties can be used to measure alcohol content. The alcohol in drinks is ethanol, C₂H₅OH. However, the ethanol used in the laboratory has been methylated by adding 5% of methanol, CH_3...

In this investigation, students extract iron from a breakfast cereal and consider how our bodies are able to digest iron by looking at its reactions with hydrochloric acid.

These activities allow students to model how environmental scientists compare diversity in different ecosystems by using ordinary playing cards as ‘species’ to generate data to calculate Simpson’s Diversity Index. This can be completed in a single lesson. Some students find the concept of species diversity quite...

Students observe what happens to blood added to salt solutions of different concentrations. This is done in test tubes, although it may also be possible to observe what happens under a microscope. The students record their observations and attempt to explain what has happened to the red blood cells. They then...

Medical professionals use lung function test to diagnose and monitor lung diseases. In these activities, students investigate how these tests are carried out and determine some of the factors which might affect the results. They will work with a partner to use a peak flow meter and a spirometer.

This online ecology practical, from SAPS, uses random sampling to measure the abundance of various different species on an area of grassland.

Objectives

To give students practice at

• using random sampling to measure the abundance of various different species on an area of...

Students research, and then try out, ways of detecting analgesic compounds in mixtures:

• Chemical tests for particular organic functional groups.

• Paper and/or thin-layer chromatography to separate and identify analgesic...

In this project students use chromatography to detect forged cheques and other documents and various types of counterfeit goods.  They will also investigate the best solvents to extract the inks and run TLC plates in order to compare the inks from the same part of a document printed on different models of a printer...