National 5 Skills for Work: Laboratory Science is a Skills for Work course. The Course provides a broad experiential introduction to laboratory science. Candidates will explore a variety of industries and services, and career opportunities, in science laboratories locally, nationally, and globally.
They will develop the basic practical skills and knowledge needed for working in a laboratory: measuring, weighing and preparing compounds and solutions; and health and safety requirements. Practical skills in microbiology, measuring radioactivity, chemical handling and laboratory instrumentation will be developed.
Candidates will work with others to produce a plan to undertake a practical investigation to test scientific hypotheses. This will also involve reporting of the results, conclusions and evaluations of the investigation.
Throughout all Units the Course emphasises the employability skills and attitudes valued by employers which will help to prepare candidates for the workplace. Candidates will review their own employability skills, and will seek feedback from others on their strengths and weaknesses.
At the end of the course the pupils will have a folio record of their work which they keep and show to employers.
Dornoch Academy has developed close links with local businesses. Pupils are taken to visit Whyte and Mackay, Rogart Vets and Highland Fine Cheeses to see how laboratory science is used in local businesses. Every year Lifescan has sent someone to visit our school to inform them of how the develop devices for monitoring blood glucose levels in diabetics.
Pupils are encouraged to do innovative projects and have cloned cauliflowers and put jellyfish DNA into bacteria to make them glow, for example.
Dornoch Academy 