John (D), are you comfortable with volts only, or are you also
comfortable with students measuring ohms and amps, and inches, etc.?
If I notice a circuit that should be drawing 10 mA is drawing 200 mA, I
would probably say, "Wow, that's a lot of current." But I might say
"Wow, that's a lot of milliamps" if I am in a playful state of mind. My
students will tell you that when something isn't working right I
sometimes get silly. I might start talking to the circuit, asking each
component, "Well, let's see what you're up to. Oh, you're not doing
very well, let's get you out of here." Heck, when I'm in that mode I
might even say, "Uh oh, we've got way too much juice goin' through this
guy." But they should know I'm in my slang mode when I do that, and
they should know not to write their lab reports in that language. If
there's any doubt, I tell them that.
There's a fun side to doing science, and there's a formal side of doing
science. I sure hope college students can experience both sides, and
know when the formal side is required. With my lab reports I like to
have them pretend they are submitting a journal article and I'm the
editor, or they are submitting a report to their boss. I've had several
former students come back to visit me and tell me they seem to be doing
too much writing and not enough experimenting. When I ask what's up,
they say that in their organization they are the best technical writers,
so the boss always has them write everything. Of course these were some
of my better students, so they get most of the credit. But I like to
take a bit of the credit for that.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton College
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu