Weighing scales play an essential role in secondary school education, offering students practical experience in various subjects, from biology and chemistry to physics, mathematics and even cooking and crafts. This blog will discuss the types of weighing scales Adam Equipment recommends for secondary school students and how they can be used for daily operations.
Why is Weighing Accuracy So Important in Education?
One critical lesson all students learn through their educational careers is the importance of fact as well as how to determine and prove facts. This skillset is developed within classes such as chemistry or biology, where we follow the scientific method, or math, where there’s only one right answer. Beyond secondary school in the higher education and working world, inaccurate information could have disastrous consequences. Accurate weighing helps students learn the importance of consistency and precision, not only in STEM but in artistic endeavors as well.
Compact Balances
Compact balances will never go out of style in education. They require little training to operate, with some like Adam’s and only featuring three buttons each.
Adam Equipment’s Dune, and compact balances boast overload protection, which helps prevent damage should a student inadvertently place an item heavier than its capacity. Meanwhile, should a student drop the balance or place an item not-so-gently on the pan, they’ll still be in proper working order with Adam’s ShockProtecttechnology, significantly increasing the lifetime of your balance. This classroom praises Core for surviving a spill on their Chemistry room floor.
If students are allowed to spread out around the classroom, school or even outdoors for a project, compact balances are particularly easy to transport. Adam’s Highland and even boast internal rechargeable batteries, so you don’t have to keep replacements on hand.
Compact Balances for Biology
- Comparing the weight of a plant from seed to sprout
- Weighing organs of dissected animals
- Basic weighing tasks
- Introduction to accurate and thorough data collection
Compact Balances for Chemistry
- Preparing basic solutions
- Measuring chemicals by weight rather than volume is more accurate
- Portability allows them to be shared between students and workstations
Compact Balances for Physics
- Readabilities between 0.1g and 2g, Adam’s Dune & CB offer results that are simple to use in calculations, by hand or with a calculator
- Teaches weight vs. mass
- Introduction to the different units of measurement
Compact Balances for Cooking/Baking
What is cooking and baking if not a delicious form of chemistry?
- Weighing ingredients has been found to be more consistent and accurate than measuring by volume
- Easier to follow recommended serving sizes when portioning food
- Easy to clean should dry ingredients spill
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Mechanical Balances
Adam’s are a popular choice for education. The learning curve isn’t very steep and their affordability makes it easier to purchase more sets, so students could have individual use, rather than sharing between their classmates.
Mechanical Balances for Physics
- TBB’s hands-on operation provides students a way to see and understand the balancing process
- Improves student’s ability to manually calculate weight values
Mechanical Balances for Chemistry
- The TBB’s attachable legs provide room for below-balance weighing, useful for determining density
- No need for a special table permitting under-balance weighing
- TBB allows the opportunity to learn how to calculate density manually, rather than a digital balance providing results
Bench Scales
Bench scales are extremely versatile weighing equipment that often offer many functions in addition to weighing. Our , for example, boasts parts counting, percentage weighing, checkweighing and display hold. They’re ideal for high-capacity applications and for demonstrating how scales and balances can be helpful beyond simple weighing, which could give your students an extra leg-up when it comes to problem solving in their future careers.
Parts counting could help a future warehouse manager during inventory season. Checkweighing may help a future quality control technician maintain consistency from product to product, while display hold will be quite helpful for a future veterinarian attempting to weigh a wiggly critter. Bench scales are perfect for truly getting the most bang from your buck and being able to teach how weight may become a recurring theme in their lives.
Bench Scales for Physics
- or feature a peak hold function, excellent for measuring force via drop tests
- Students can measure the weight of an item, then drop it on the pan from differing heights to see how force affects the object’s weight
- Peak hold freezes results on the display so students can record the result without rushing
Bench Scales for Cooking
- Helps keep a tight control of bulk ingredient inventory in the classroom
- Available ingredients can be calculated by comparing quantities provided in the recipes
- If you have 15 students and they all require 120g of flour for today’s lesson, if you only have 1.68kg of flour (1680g), one student will end up disappointed. It pays to be prepared!
Bench Scales for Crafts
- Bench scales like Adam’s Aqua or are fantastic for craft classes such as Sculpture, Woodwork or Pottery/Ceramics
- Weighing creations throughout the process teaches how to use materials effectively, without waste
- Weighing pottery helps with consistency between pieces, with our an excellent surface for weighing with proper visibility
- Aqua ABW and ABW-S are IP67 and IP68 for protection against glitter, clay, paint or water from washing those off
Hanging Scales
Instead of placing items on a platform like using a regular weighing scale, our provides results by measuring the force of gravity as an item hang’s from its hook.
Hanging Scales for Physics
- Perfect for testing tensile strength
- Adam’s SHS is extremely durable, so students can be rougher with it
- An easy, fun and engaging method of measuring how much force is required for an object to break
Precision Balances
Precision balances are a wonderful middle-ground between bench scales and analytical balances. Bench scales come with higher average capacities yet less fine readabilities, while analytical balances are more precise but offer lower capacities and are generally less affordable. Adam’s precision balances possess capacities between 360g and 34kg, with readabilities between 0.001g and 0.1g.
Precision Balances for Biology
- Ensures consistent samples in experiments to ensure that they’re following the scientific formula
- Allows for testing the weight of an item over time as it’s being used for an experiment
- Helps make experiments clear and repeatable with controlled variables
Precision Balances for Chemistry
- Adam’s are equipped with a dynamic/animal weighing function, which records the average weight of an item over a set time period
- This makes weighing liquid chemistry solutions easier and more accurate
- No need to guarantee that the solution is still and settled first
- The Luna’s percentage weighing helps precisely measure out exact percentages and ratios of chemicals, streamlining the weighing process
Precision Balances for Physics
- The Highland Compact Precision Balance offers accumulation
- Excellent for projects requiring multiple trials
- Students can add up each result, divide by the number of attempts to reach an average weight
Analytical Balances
Analytical balances are the most advanced that we’d recommend for a secondary school, but Adam’s are just right for the job. They’re versatile and effective without being overly complex or distracting. You can choose between capacities of 120g to 250g, with readabilities of 0.0001g.
Analytical Balances for Chemistry
- Helps students see the difference between compact balance and analytical balance readabilities
- Encourages an understanding of when total accuracy and precision is necessary
- Perfect for determining molecular weights
- Performing quantitative analysis
- Preparing solutions
- Provides students with clear weight values to eliminate guesswork, increasing confidence
In Summary, Recommended Balances by Subject
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Biology |
Chemistry |
Physics |
Cooking |
Art |
Compact |
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Mechanical |
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Bench |
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Hanging |
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Precision |
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Analytical |
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Still not sure which weighing scales may be best for your classroom? Contact our team and we’ll be happy to help.
