School science

Nice little article in today's Observer about school science experiments.

Now it's a long time since I was at school (left 6th form in 1981 to be precise) but I remember some mad science teachers fondly.
Our chemistry teacher performed the Thermite reaction for us on more than one occasion. It was impressive. It was scary. There weren't enough safety goggles to go around. But the real danger was not in the classroom.
The reaction makes such an impressive flash, that it was seen by a cook in the school kitchens, whose windows faced the chemistry lab. This particular cook was so startled that she nearly sliced through her hand with a breadknife and had to be wheeled off to hospital.