How I ran the viscosity lab with 120 pre-med students
Fluid Dynamics Lab: Viscosity of Biological FluidsRan this with 4 sections of 30 students each over two weeks. The biggest challenge was equipment throughput — we solved it by setting up 6 stations and rotating groups every 15 minutes.
Implementation Details
Class Size
120 students (4 sections × 30)
Student Level
Sophomore pre-med, intro physics
Duration
2 weeks (4 lab sessions)
Outcome
89% of students met the learning objective on the post-lab assessment, up from 72% with the previous textbook-only approach.
Replies(5)
120 students is impressive! We cap at 24 per section. How did you handle the glycerin temperature control with 6 stations running simultaneously? We've had consistency issues when ambient temp varies across the room.
Great question — we kept all glycerin samples in a shared water bath at 25°C and had students draw their sample right before measurement. Added about 2 minutes per group but eliminated the temperature variable almost entirely. We also had a TA dedicated to the water bath station.
The 89% learning objective rate is really solid. Did you use the same post-lab assessment as with the textbook-only approach, or was it modified? Trying to gauge how directly comparable those numbers are.
Same assessment — 10-question quiz covering viscosity concepts, measurement technique, and biological application. We kept it identical specifically so we could compare. The biggest improvement was on the application questions (Q7-Q10), where students had to connect viscosity to blood flow. Hands-on measurement seems to build that intuition much better than reading about it.
Would this work with a smaller budget? We don't have 6 viscometers — we have 2. Wondering if a rotating schedule across two weeks instead of one would work, or if the momentum is lost between sessions.
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