On Tuesday, January 25, the freshman class performed a chemistry lab with Mr. Langdon. We got to do an experiment with different metals and burning them to change the color of the flame because we are learning about the periodic tables and the elements right now. We tested calcium, strontium, potassium, sodium, copper, and lithium.
The flame that comes out of the Bunsen burners was a light blue, almost see-through, but once we dipped a wooden stick into some water, then dip it into some metal salt and put the stick in the water, it changed colors. We first tested calcium. Calcium salt didn’t look like your average cooking salt, it was in bigger flakes. When we put calcium into the fire, it turned a bright red. That one was my favorite because of the cool bright red color.
Next we tried copper. Copper had more of a fine salt like cooking salt. It burned a bright blue-green color, this was Bryce Strickler’s favorite because he likes blue and green, so that turned out good.
Then we tried potassium. Potassium was a little rougher and bigger than calcium and strontium, but still burnt the same. Potassium burned a bright orange. That one was pretty cool too.
The last one we tried was lithium, which was fine like potassium and strontium. Lithium was interesting because it burned pink, and none of us expected it to be pink. We didn’t even know metal could burn pink, so it was really cool and interesting.
Chemistry is one of my favorite classes because it is interesting and we do cool experiments like this one.
- Joel Fullmer, Freshman
No comments:
Post a Comment