Friday, February 22, 2013

If You're Not Part of the Solution...


then you're part of the precipitate!

My Honors Chem class worked through a qualitative analysis lab to confirm (or deny) the presence of zinc, iron, and silver ions in a solution.  The students took advantage of the precipitation reactions that occur when these metal ions are mixed with chloride, hydroxide, ammonia, and other anions in solution.  

First the lab teams worked with a known solution that contained each of the three ions, to learn how to make a positive ID of each one.  Then they were given an unknown solution that contained one or more of these ions.  The lab teams worked through the series of precipitation reactions to reveal what was in their unknown solutions.

The groups created a presentation in Google Docs to present their work.  My instructions were pretty simple:  one slide for each ion, one-three slides for your unknown, and an intro and a conclusion slide.  What I got from these creative students was very fun to read and included accurate information about the chemistry involved.  I enjoyed them all, but this one stood "out in the crowd" for both creativity and good chemistry.  Take a look!













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