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Specialty Chemistry Forums => Citizen Chemist => Topic started by: leeeooooo on June 02, 2007, 11:12:01 AM

Title: looking for some practical experiments to do ... that are safe in an environment
Post by: leeeooooo on June 02, 2007, 11:12:01 AM

Hi I'm part of my high schools chemistry club and i'm looking for some practical experiments to do ... that are safe in an environment of 20-30 students or are hands on / practical

we've shown the mentos coke bomb experiment, synthesized slime, make snowglobes from supersaturated solutions, but that's as far as it goes for practical

what are some cool demonstrations... i'm thinking the smoke bomb?

Title: Re: Need some suggestions
Post by: Donaldson Tan on June 02, 2007, 03:46:13 PM

Making rockets or toy cars powered by vinegar and baking soda

Title: Re: Need some suggestions
Post by: enahs on June 02, 2007, 04:02:13 PM

Well, if you want to make people think. You can challenge everybody to come up with the correct answer, and whoever gets closest win, or everybody can do it.

Take 20-30 mL of acetone, and ask them how many, or have them find out their selves how many of those really stupid and annoying Styrofoam peanuts that come in virtually every box that something is shipped in, will disolve in such little acetone. The answer is, a lot...like, a whole lot!


Another safe easy one you can do. You know those glow sticks you can get? Well, the intensity of the light is dependent on the temperature. So give people those, and a glass of cold water and a glass of hot water, and notice the difference. This is due to the kinetics of the reaction.



There are tons, it really depends on your "budget" and how safe/what you are allowed to do.

Title: Re: Need some suggestions
Post by: Yggdrasil on June 02, 2007, 05:05:07 PM

The synthesis of esters from carboxylic acids and alcohols by Fischer esterification is a pretty simple organic chem experiment to do.  Plus, unlike a lot of organic syntheses, you can easily tell whether you created the right compound because esters typically have characteristic smells.  Here are some threads on the forum discussion esters, but if you have more questions, I'm sure many of us could help provide protocols:

http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=7900
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=8942

Here are some more pages from this forum which might contain some useful suggestions:

http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=5399.0
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=8162.0
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=6466.0
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=10340
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=9271
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=7264
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=7094

And one offsite link to another good page with a lot of suggestions:
http://woelen.scheikunde.net/science/chem/exps/index3.html

Title: Re: looking for some practical experiments to do ... that are safe in an environment
Post by: CausticPotash on June 20, 2007, 10:59:19 PM

1. You could see how much water some sodium polyacrylate could absord. This isn't that great, but its easy...
2. Along practical lines, you could show how ink coloring is made by mixing Sodium Ferrocyanide and Ferric Ammonium Sulfate together.
3. You could get some magnets and some magnaview fluid and demonstrate magnetic fields... then again this isn't a classroom.

Hope this helps a little bit

Title: Re: looking for some practical experiments to do ... that are safe in an environment
Post by: billnotgatez on June 21, 2007, 02:18:15 PM

http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=8986.0