Showing 24 results
Chameleon bubbles are formed when a sodium alginate solution is dropped into a calcium chloride solution. The bubbles are filled by an acid‐base indicator solution; so, adding the beads to acids or bases leads to colour changes inside the bubbles by diffusion and pH change. Students can learn about acids, bases,...
The chemical garden is a well‐established experiment from the chemistry of salts, solubility, diffusion, and solutions. The nice thing is that if metal salts are put in sodium water glass solution, it can lead to an effect reminiscent of plants growing. This growing process can be observed and analysed. In the end...
Two translucent liquids are mixed. At first, nothing happens: the resulting solution is still translucent. Suddenly, with no warning, the solution turns blue-black all at once.
Curriculum links include redox reactions, rate of reaction, kinetics
In this Crest Award accredited project, students monitor levels of atmospheric sulfur dioxide and rainfall acidity in the school grounds. Suggested investigations include:
- Investigate various methods of measuring acidities between pH4 and pH7, to decide which method is most accurate.
- Compare...
In this project students will research ways of detecting low concentrations of lead and apply these to test samples from the environment. The objective is to investigate whether lead from petrol still persists at the roadside in order to determine whether there is a lurking legacy of lead.
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This project encourages students to make contact with a business that performs quality control analyses, such as a public analyst who tests samples for the Trading Standards Department. Students will need to carry out both quantitative and qualitative analysis on tablets with a single active ingredient, such as...
In this project, students make their own aspirin or paracetamol and then test the purity of the pain-reliever and compare it to shop-bought. This covers titrations, chromatography and other analytical techniques.
The aim of this project is to investigate the properties of alcohol/water mixtures, and how these properties can be used to measure alcohol content. The alcohol in drinks is ethanol, C2H5OH. However, the ethanol used in the laboratory has been methylated by adding 5% of methanol, CH3...
This mystery deals with a laboratory report in which the written results suddenly vanished. The students need to find out how the writing vanished, how to recover the vanished data, and what the secret of the pen is.
Curriculum links include ...
This worksheet looks at electrolysis, its use in the extraction of sodium and aluminum and in the purification of copper. Having completed it, students are then asked to set up a simple electrolytic cell to obtain pure copper and calculate and measure the amount of product deposited at an electrode during...
In this predict-observe-explain activity, students explore different ways of extinguishing a flame with some surprising results. The lesson is introduced with the video of engineer Yusuf Muhammad. Yusuf is developing a revolutionary new household fire-safety device, incorporating the techniques of professional...
Gelli Baff, a crystalline powder, has been dumped into a bathtub filled with water. How can you force the hydrogel to go down the plughole in order to drain the bathtub?
In this investigation, students learn about swelling reactions, balanced reactions, and polymerisation. Students should be able to...
In this project, student investigate the ingredients of lipsticks, and work out why lipsticks are certain colours, and work out how to change the consistency of lipstick and how to control its ‘...
In the context of finding out why we grit roads in winter, students are shown what happens when salt is sprinkled onto ice lollies. They are then asked If they believe that the temperature of the ice lolly with the salt will increase or decrease, causing it to melt faster. Students then investigate some...