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Mermaid711

I Need Experiment Ideas.

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Hi you guys =]]

 

I am in a Pre AP Science class (Yes I am a nerd) And we have to find an experiment to preform in class.

 

I tried google, but nothing that i could use came up.

 

So here are the requirements:

 

All chemicals and supplies must be legal.

It must be affordable for middle school students.

It can't explode =[[

And it has to fit inside the classroom.

 

I need help, and remeber, this is a pre AP class so the oldschool baking soda and viniger trick won't work.

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Well... you could do the invisible ink thing with lemon juice and a flame, but that might be too elementary. How about building a solar oven? You'll need plywood, black paint, and aluminum foil. You might also need some glass or thick plastic sheeting as a cover, depending on your design. My cousin did a study on different brands of milk to see how quickly they spoil. If you don't have different brands, you could do something with the fat content. For example, will whole milk expire faster than 1% milk and why?What about the differences between organic and non-organic? You could also try to grow a plant using commercial products like store-bought fertilizer and miracle-gro as opposed to a compost pile made from natural materials. Look into the effects of genetic engineering in our food by trying to grow a vegetable or fruit from the store as opposed to a local grower or seeds.Another hot topic would be something environmental. Look into pollution. What are the causes, what are some possible solutions, etc. Does the lack of car emissions from electronic vehicles offset the emissions from using more electricity? Can you build something eco-friendly to present to the class?There's a couple of ideas for you, hope it helps!

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ah yes... the old baking soda and vinegar trick.Well how 'bout that acid trick where you make it turn colours? Currently thats the only one I can think of that might be better then the baking soda and vinegar, but be creative.PS the diet coke+mentos in my opinion is even worse then the baking soda+vinegar so i wouldn't try itGood luck on your science project and I want to see and A++ on your report card... hehehe

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I don't know exactly what sort of things you are thinking of, but here are a few ideas (well, mostly experiments I've done at some point in the past):

 

Chip Pan

It doesn't explode as such :) Heat a really small amount of wax or oil up until some of it vaporises, then stand well back and spray some water at it. You'll get a fireball that goes up, and often a bit of water sprays out over the room. Great fun and gets a good "Wow" from everyone.

 

Aspirin

If you want something a little less dangerous, carry out an experiment to find out how much of an aspirin tablet is actually aspirin. Crush an aspirin tablet into a power and weigh it in a specimen tube. Put around 15cm3 of ethanol in a 100cm3 conical flask and add 3 or 4 drops of phenolphthalein indicator. Put in as much of the aspirin powder as you can. Weigh the empty tube so you know exactly how much aspirin is in the conical flask. Swirl it around until the aspirin dissolves (add more ethanol if you need to). Then titrate it against 0.1mol dm-3 sodium hydroxide. Stop when the phenolphthalein turns pink, and note down how much NaOH you used. Then you should be able to work out how much of the aspirin tablet was actually aspirin.

 

Make Some Batteries

You can mix a wide variety of chemicals together to produce various power sources. For each you need a high resistance voltmeter, a strip of filter paper soaked in potassium nitrate, 2 100cm3 beakers, 2 thin metal strips (explained below). You can try out the following combinations - each one is one beaker, so you can use any two and see what happens :D

Copper strip in copper sulphate

Iron strip in iron sulphate

Zinc strip in zinc sulphate

Place the two empty beakers next to each other, and put the soaked filter paper strip between the two, so one end of the filter paper is in each beaker (a sort of n shape). Think of it as bridging the beakers.

 

Pick two from the list of 3 set-ups above. In one beaker pour in the first sulphate solution, and put in the corresponding metal strip. Do the same for the other beaker with your second choice.

 

Connect each of the metal strips to a wire, and put those wires into a voltmeter. You should detect a voltage (and you've made a battery :P ). Try it out with different combinations.

 

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If those ideas aren't any good then I've got plenty more I can throw at you. Good luck with your experiment, whatever it turns out to be :D

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Heat Listerine up to a boil and add some lemon juice, vinegar, and olive oil to it. Throw a burning match into the pot while it is still hot (do this outside for it might explode), and while it is in flames add baking soda.I really have no idea what it's going to do but it sounds really cool... Perhaps I?m going to try it. It might be the cure to cancer!But here's one I do know what it will do:Mix orange juice (or another highly acidic substance) with some C4. Now that will defiantly explode!

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