I'll try to start a new thread-
I am very interested in thinking about scientific ethics in the
classroom.
Some typical unethical behaviors I am aware of are:
Doing a quick and dirty titration to determine where an end point is
(and calculate the concentration of an unknown) but not including
it in the report.
After observing a glass jar full of creepy crawlies for a semester
making up, de novo, the observations for a semester.
Fudging a calibration curve so that the intercept is zero.
The obvious copying lab reports/ prelabs and other homework.....
I think students generally have the feeling "its just a class" so they
don't feel like they are cheating. I think making lab grades more
dependent upon true observations (rather than say 100% yield)
is a way to eliminate some of the need for fudging/ cheating etc.
Ideas, experiences, solutions, funny anecdotes?
-Paula
(PS- I wa pretty naive in general chemistry- a friend was retaking the
ourse, and after we got lab reports back, he always asked me if he could
look at mine to correct his (and vice versa- but I was really into the
class....) It wasn't until a year later that I was talking to our TA and
found out that he was turning his reports in months late. I still
thought he was a nice guy, but I didn't take any more classes with him-
after all- it was just a lab)
