The Caliper

A New Spectrophotometer Program!

Our newest data acquisition program, Spectro Pro, allows you to collect and analyze data from several different spectrophotometers. The Spectronic 20D or D+, Genesys 20, or Flinn Spectrophotometer can be connected directly to a PC or Macintosh® serial port using the appropriate cable. The analog spectrophotometers, Spectronic 20 and 20+, can be connected to the computer through an interface—a Vernier LabPro®, ULI, or Serial Box Interface.

With the spectrophotometer connected to your computer’s serial port, you can:

• collect absorbance vs. time data for kinetics studies.
• collect absorbance vs. concentration data to produce a Beer’s law graph or determine the concentration of an unknown by interpolation.
• collect absorbance vs. wavelength data to produce an absorption spectrum. view data graphed in real time.
• easily calibrate the spectrophotometer by following on-screen prompts.
• create calculated spreadsheet columns, perform curve fits on data, and do statistical analysis of data.

We used Spectro Pro to perform a spectral analysis of the pigment extracted from autumn leaves. After soaking the leaves in rubbing alcohol for two days, cuvettes were filled with the extract solution. We used wavelengths of 400 nm to 700 nm and we plotted the absorbance values. The graph above shows the compilation of data for four different colored leaves. Thanks to Jack Sipe, Tracy Schoolcraft, Paula Rupert, and Gregory Anderson of the Advancing Science Program at Gettysburg College for the lab idea.

You can request a copy of the experiment procedure from their web site at http://advancingscience.org.
Spectro Pro:
(Includes site license for both Windows® and Macintosh)
Order Code SP .............. $50

Spectrophotometer Cables

Flinn Spectrophotometer	SPC-FLI (PC) or SPC-FLM (MAC)	$25
Spec 20D or D +	SPC-IBM (PC) or SPC-MAC (MAC)	$25
Spec 20 Genesys	GEN-PC (PC) or GEN-MAC (MAC)	$25
Spec 20 or 20 +	SPC-DIN (for ULI, SBI) or SPC-BTA (for LabPro)	$25

More Awards for Our Products

Vernier LabPro received a 2001 Award of Excellence from Technology & Learning magazine. The awards were presented at the School Technology Expo in Chicago in October.	The September 2001 eSchool News Readers’ Choice Awards rated Vernier Graphical Analysis as the most popular of all grade 9-12 science software.