PLANNING A TRIP TO MARS

Before we plan a trip to Mars we need to gather some important information about it.
Using the Mars fact sheet or an online search engine you need to compile details about Mars and record these on your blog ( or a piece of paper).

THE WATER CYCLE IN ACTION 💦

AIM: To observe the basic processes of the water cycle 💦

EQUIPMENT: 200mL beaker, watch glass, ice cubes, Bunsen burner, tripod, gauze mat

METHOD: 

1. Fill the beaker with approximately 100mL of water and place on a tripod over a Bunsen burner.

2. Fill the watch glass with a few pieces of ice and leave it on the bench.

3. Light the Bunsen and heat the water until it just starts to simmer. Do not boil the water!

4. Turn the Bunsen burner off and gently place the watch glass and ice on top of the beaker.

Fill the beaker with 100ml of water.

Light the bunsen burner.

When the water is simmering, turn off the bunsen burner and put the watch glass on top of the beaker.

There is water vapour clearly visible in the beaker.

The water then begins to condense by dripping.

OBSERVATIONS 💦

We let it heat up until it was brought to a simmer. Then we quickly placed the watch glass of ice on top and we got results immediately. Grey water vapour swirled around in the glass for a few minutes. After those minutes we noticed it was becoming more transparent. Water started dripping from the bottom and there was condensation around the beaker's walls. 

1. State the energy source that drives the water cycle. The energy source is the sun; although in our experiment it was an artificial heat, the Bunsen burner.

2. Is water vapour visible? Yes. The water vapour was swirling around in the beaker before it condensed back into water.

3. Outline two pathways by which water can enter the atmosphere.

a)  Evaporation

b)  Transpiration

4. Explain how water vapour in the atmosphere ends up returning to the surface of the Earth.
The water vapour in the atmosphere, after evaporating, ends up being so cold, that through the process of condensing, it falls to the Earth as precipitation (rain). 

5. List four types of precipitation 🌨️

a) rain 

b) snow 

c) sleet 
d) hail

6. Water 💦 is constantly being evaporated from the sea surface, but the sea level remains fairly constant. Explain why the sea level does not fall. 

Because water cannot escape the atmosphere, the sea level remains the same because no water is leaving, the water is simply going through the process of the water cycle constantly, so it can be being evaporated and precipitated at the same time in different regions

Evaporation - the process of water being converted into gas by heat and travelling upwards. This happened in the beaker.

Transpiration - When moisture travels up from the roots of a plant up into the atmosphere via the stomata (leaves)

PROTEIN EXPERIMENT ⚛️

AIM: To test if a sample of food contains protein or not.
EQUIPMENT: Test tube, sodium hydroxide (NaOH), copper sulfate (CuSO4), food sample (eggs, milk).
METHOD: 
1. Place about 2mL of the sample into a test tube and add 5 drops of sodium hydroxide.
2. Add 5 drops of copper sulfate
3. Shake the test tube GENTLY from side to side, as opposed to up and down.
RESULTS: 
If the solution remains blue, then no protein is present. If the solution shifts to a purple colour then protein is present in the sample.
CONCLUSION: 
After shaking for about 2-3 minutes each time, for some unknown reason both our solutions remained blue instead of shifting to purple; this may have possibly been due to an incorrect ratio of NaOH to CuS04 or not enough of the food sample in the test tube.

1. Body builders try to eat a diet high in protein.Why do they do this?
To increase muscle mass and repair damaged tissue.

2. Name three types of food a body-builder should eat in order to consume a lot of protein.
a) Dairy
b) Red meat/poultry
c) Seafood

3. Explain why a test tube is shaken gently from side to side rather than up and down when completing an investigation like this one.
Because this ensures the solution is not accidentally spilled out of the test tube which could happen if it was shaken vigorously up and down.

SEPARATING COLOURS: EXPERIMENT 🌈

Scientists classify the light given off from the Sun and standard light bulbs as white light.  We can't actually see white light. White light is made up of a whole range (or spectrum) of colours mixed together.

We can see this spectrum if we pass white light through a glass prism (a triangular glass block). This rainbow of colours is called the 'visible spectrum'. The visible spectrum contains the colours red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The colours of the light spectrum are easy to remember if you recall ROYGBIV.

The reason white light splits into the colours of the spectrum is because each colour is refracted at slightly different angles as it passes from air to glass.

SEPARATING COLOURS EXPERIMENT

AIM: To separate white light into the colours of the visible spectrum.
EQUIPMENT: Ray box, single-slit ray slide, power source, prism.
METHOD:
1. Set up a ray box with a single-slit ray slide. 
2. Place a glass prism in the correct area (Sci pad page) indicated below. 
3. Aim the single beam at the prism, ensuring that the beam of light is hitting the prism on a steep angle as indicated by the arrow on the diagram. You may need to adjust it slightly in order to get the spectrum to appear.
4. Complete the diagram by drawing the rays of coloured light exiting the prism. 

(i am aware this is a pink floyd logo but its what the experiment looked like ok)

RESULTS:
When the incident ray hit the correct angle of the prism we could see a narrow rainbow of colours streaming out the side, bent slightly inwards. This was a result in the white light being refracted at different angles as it travelled from glass to air, and so we could see the separate colours of the spectrum. 

SCIENCE: REFRACTION 🌈

Ever noticed how a drinking straw seems to bend in two when it's viewed in a glass filled with water? This is because of refraction.
Refraction occurs because light change speed and direction when it moves from one medium into another. 
Medium is the word used by scientists to describe a substance that light will travel through. A medium can be a solid, liquid, or a gas.
The straw appears bent because the light travels faster through air that through the liquid. Because it slows down as it enters the liquid, the light bends towards normal. 

AIM: To investigate how light is affected by changing the substance it is travelling through. 
EQUIPMENT: Ray box, power source, glass or perspex block, single slit ray slide.
METHOD:

1. Place the glass box in the correct area.
2. Place your ray box at the top of the page and shine the beam so it travels along the 10 degree line to the centre of the protractor (this is your angle of incidence). 
3. Read the angle the light leaves the glass block at (this is your angle of refraction).
4. Continue the investigation so you can complete the table opposite.

HYPOTHESIS: I think the light will bend in an upwards direction when travelling through glass.

RESULTS: 

When the rays of light transmitted travelled through air to pass into the medium (the glass) it slowed down and bent inwards in a forward direction. When it exited the glass block it speeds up and bends outwards.

There are varying result for different shapes and types of mediums. When light is shined through different mediums it acts in different ways - it could speed up, slow down, bend outward and inward, etc, etc, and in this experiment we observed what would happen through glass blocks. 

This is called refraction: it is a phenomenon that occurs when light passes through different mediums to change speed and direction in the process. 

CONVECTION EXPERIMENT ⚛️

When particles are heated, the distance between the particles increases. This means that objects will expand. When liquids or gases expand they become less dense. A gas or liquid which is less dense will rise through a more dense gas or liquid. This is the explanation for the well-known tendency of hot fluids to rise and cold fluids to sink. Scientists call this process convection.

AIM: To observe convection in a liquid. 
EQUIPMENT: 200mL beaker, water, tweezers, a crystal of potassium permanganate, a drinking straw, Bunsen burner, heat mat, tripod, gauze mat, petri dish. 
METHOD: 
1. Set up a Bunsen burner on a heatproof mat. Put the gauze mat on the tripod but leave it just to one side of the Bunsen burner.
2. Fill up at 200mL beaker with 150mL cold water. 
3. Place the beaker on top of the tripod and gauze and allow it to settle for a few minutes.
4. Carefully insert a drinking straw down one side of the beaker, ensuring the straw is touching the bottom of the beaker. Be careful as you do not want to disturb the water too much.
5. Using tweezers, drop a crystal of potassium permanganate down the inside of the straw. Wait for the crystal to settle on the bottom of the beaker.
6. Very gently, so to not disturb the water, remove the straw.
7. Light the Bunsen and slide it under the tripod so that you are only heating the outside of the beaker where the crystal is. Observe. 

OBSERVATIONS:
As time progressed. the purple hue of the permanganate spread to colour the entire water contents. It started to get darker, especially around the bottom of the beaker, and there were some particles floating on the meniscus of the water. We noticed it smelt like burnt toast throughout the experiment.

In a petri dish, we filled it up with cold water and then dropped the permanganate in it. We noticed the beaker and dish both appeared different in hue due to the difference in temperature of the water. 
By doing this we were able to see how the crystal of potassium permanganate acted in both hot and cold water. 

EXPLANATION:
1. Decide whether the following statements are true or false.
(a) Convection occurs because the particles expand. True.
(b) Hot water rises because the hot particles are more spread out.
False. 
(c) An object that is very dense will float on a less dense object.
False.
(d) Cold water sinks below warmer water because it is more dense. 
True. 

I am wondering... what would happen if we stirred the solution or allowed it to boil.

CONDUCTION EXPERIMENT: Dropping Pinheads 💎

Conduction is a term used to describe the flow of heat through an object. Objects that are good at conducting heat are called thermal conductors. Metals are thermal conductors, but plastics, fur, wool and gases are usually poor thermal conductors. Poor thermal conductors are called thermal insulators.

When particles at one end of a metal rod are heated, they begin to vibrate more. This causes them to bump into neighbouring particles, making them vibrate more rapidly.

The process of particles bumping into neighbouring particles continues along the metal rod. In this way heat energy is conducted from the hot end of the rod to the cold end, until the entire rod is hot.

AIM: To observe conduction along a metal rod.
EQUIPMENT: A metal rod, retort stand and clamp, Bunsen burner, petroleum jelly, 5-10 drawing pins or small pebbles, a stopwatch. 
METHOD:
1. Set up and light a bunsen burner.
2. Smear a small amount of petroleum jelly on to the head of each drawing pin. 
3. Attach the drawing pins at even intervals along the length of the metal rod.
4. Clamp one end of the metal rod to a retort stand.
5. Position the retort stand to the unclamped end of the metal rod is in the Bunsen burner flame and start the stopwatch.
6. Record the time it takes for each pin to drop in the table below.

EXPLANATION: Using the words particles, vibrating and transfer, explain how to the heat from the Bunsen Burner was conducted along the metal bar. 

When the Bunsen burner flame heated up the end of the metal rod, the particles inside the rod started to vibrate more due to the heat. This resulted in a 'ripple effect' - the vibrating particles bumping into each other so the heat energy is transferred down the road and through the particles, until the entire rod is hot. 

QUESTIONS: 
1. State what the term 'thermal' relates to. 
Thermal relates to the experiment because the retention of the rod's heat was a result of it being thermal conduction (good at flowing heat through an object)

2. Define the term 'thermal insulator'. 
A thermal insulator are objects or material that is poor at flowing and retaining heat through itself. An example of this would be a plastic paperclip - if you held a lighter at one end and held the paperclip at the other, you would not be able to feel the heat of the paperclip, whereas if you do so with a metal paperclip, you would feel the heat and probably get your fingers burned. This is because heat throws through metal easily and is able to transfer from one end from the metal paperclip to another, but it doesn't do the same for thermal insulator materials such as fur, wool, and gases

3. Fish and chips are often wrapped in layers of newspaper to keep them warm.
(A) What's trapped between the layers of newspaper? 
Because paper is a thermal insulator, it is able to trap and retain the heat from the fish and chips.

(B) Using your knowledge of the Particle Theory of Matter, explain why your answer to (A) helps keep the fish and chips warm. 
Because the layers of paper are able to retain heat, the heat from the food does not escape or cool down. The energy conducted from the food is retained by the layers of paper which act as thermal insulators. 

EXPERIMENT: Expansion of Particles 🔥

In a solid, particles are tightly packed together.
In a liquid, they are slightly further apart.
In a gas, they are spread further out to take up as much space available.

To make particles expand more, you can heat it up, or stir it. Today we're doing an experiment using heat 🔥.





Particles are sensitive to heat, so when they are exposed to it, they begin to move around more and the space between the particles increases, causing the substance to expand. 

The diagram to the right shows the effect of heat on the particles in a solid substance. Notice that the 'hot' particles are vibrating more than the 'cold' particles. Because of this, they are bumping into each other and the distance between the particles increases. This means the solid will expand.

Describe the effects of heat on: 
1. The movement of particles - the particles vibrate when they are being heated. 
2. The size of the particles - the particles stay the same size no matter what.
3. The space between the particles - the vibration causes the particles to expand.
4. The size of the substance - heating of particles usually result in the substance either melting or turning into gas. 

EXPERIMENT: The Imploding Can 🔥
AIM: To observe contraction in gases.
EQUIPMENT: Aluminium can, scissor tongs, Bunsen burner, heatproof mat, tripod, gauze mat, an open container of water.
METHOD: 
1. Set up a Bunsen Burner underneath a gauze mat and tripod.
2. Poor approximately 50-60mL of water into your can so it is no more than 1/4 full.
3. Heat the can on the Bunsen burner until steam is seen escaping from the top. Carefully grip the can with the scissor tongs, ensuring you have a firm hold of the can before lifting it off the gauze mat.
4. Quickly, but very carefully, invert the can as you plunge it into a container of water. 

Set up the Bunsen burner and heat the can until you can see steam pouring out of the top of the can and the water inside is boiling (NOT simmering). 

With scissor tongs, ensure you have a firm grip of the can. 

Carefully but quickly dump the can in the container of water, ensuring it's top is completely submerged in the water.

Both of our experiments failed, but here is a successful experiment from our friends Rheanna and Jay. As you can see their can imploded. 

RESULTS 🔥
After we conducted our first experiment, the can didn't implode. This was because the top of the can wasn't totally submerged in the water, and we believed to not have allowed the waters to boil for long enough. It was only simmering when we took it off the heat. Our first experiment was unsuccessful.


We wanted to conduct a successful experiment so we got a new can and tried again. This time we made sure the water was boiling because other successful experiments had boiling water. However, the can wasn't angled right and the top didn't make it to the water. Our second experiment was unsuccessful.


DISCUSSION 🔥
How and why did the can implode?
Prior to heating the can on the Bunsen Burner, the can's contents are only the small amount of water and air. 
During the boiling process, the air turns to gas (the particles inside the liquid expand to take up all available space) which can be observed as steam or water vapour seeping out of the top of the can. 
The steam is actually pushing all of the air that is once inside the can out of it, so when you dunk it inside of the water, the top of the can makes an airtight seal against the surface of the water, and the cold water temperature results in the vapour/steam inside of the can to condense down into nothing but a few drops of liquid. 
This lack of pressure inside of the can means the exterior air pressure is strong enough to suddenly collapse the can inwards, towards it's centre, or "implode". 


I am wondering: Does the amount of water in the can affect how it is crushed?

EVAPORATING COKE 🍻

Aim: To separate a solute from a solvent in a solution using distillation.

Hypothesis: I think the no-sugar coke will evaporate faster because it has no sugar in it to increase the density.

Equipment: A solution of Coca Cola, conical flask, heatproof mat, a delivery tube, bung, Bunsen burner, tripod, gauze mat, retort stand, boss head, clamp, boiling tube, and three different kinds of Coca Cola. The control variables in this experiment consisted of Coke with no sugar, Diet Coke, and regular Coke.

1. Set up equipment as shown in the following diagram.

2. Add approximately 20 ml of Coca Cola to the boiling tube to be heated above the Bunsen burner.

3. Light the Bunsen burner and turn the air hole to a blue flame. My group used our flame with an orange tip for the best results.

4. Heat the solution until most of the solvent has been evaporated. Turn off your Bunsen burner.

Observations

No Sugar Coke Photos

RESULT

Normal Coke Photos

RESULT

RESULT

Diet Coke Photos

Discussion

Why did the normal coke go green?

It's difficult to tell. The only colourant in Coca Cola is the dark brown caramel flavouring and there was nothing else in the boiling tube that could have affected the results. 

Which coke was the quickest to evaporate, and why?

The normal coke was the quickest.

The theory I believe to be most accurate is the difference in boiling points between the three cokes. The boiling point of high fructose corn syrup is 110°c. The boiling point of acesulfame potassium is 225°c. From this we can conclude that the normal coke evaporated faster because of the lower boiling point of it's sugar content compared to the acesulfame potassium in the Diet and No-Sugar coke.

What could we have done to have conducted a more accurate experiment?

We could have used a thermometer to monitor and record the temperature of the coke to determine what temperature it is at during the boiling process.

We could have measured the volume of liquid left in the condensation tube at the end to determine how much of the solvent evaporated from it's original 20 mL. 

Conclusion

The normal coke evaporated faster than the Diet and No-Sugar Cokes because of the lower boiling point of its sugar content compared to the acesulfame potassium in the Diet and No-Sugar coke. 

We were able to separate the liquid from the Cokes using distillation and therefore our experiment was successful. The no-sugar coke evaporated and condensed 4 minutes and 45 seconds slower in comparison to the normal coke, therefore making my hypothesis incorrect!

Mixing and Separating in Science

 Distillation

To purify or clean a substance, using the process of heating and vaporising, then cooling and condensing.

 Separation Solutions

Solutions or methods to separate substances from one another. Examples including filtration, which is extracting solids from liquids and evaporation, which is turning water into gas without boiling.

Chromatography

A method of separating a mixture of chemicals by slowly releasing them near another substance, either liquid or solid.

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Expectations In The Science Lab

• Come to class quietly and ready to learn
• Put your bag under the desk
• Walk in the science lab (no running).
• Food is not allowed in the lab.
• One person talking at a time.
• Hands up.
• Clean up after all experiments.