General Science: Iron nails in copper sulfate

While we're on the subject of chemical reactions here's a photo of an iron nail submerged in copper sulfate solution. As you can see, the color of the solution changes and in place of an iron nail you get a sandy solid that is copper. What actually happens is the iron displaces the copper and as the reaction goes to completion we are left with iron sulfate and copper.

General Science: Mixing Sulfur and Iron

This week we started learning some chemistry. Using a microscope and a magnet the kids explored the properties of 2 elements: sulfur and iron. Then they combined them and determined whether they had performed a physical change or a chemical change.

Here are some of the high points of their results:

iron: black, magnetic
sulfur: yellow, smelly, not magnetic
iron + sulfur: grayish yellow, smelly, BUT easily separated from each other with a magnet

Physical or chemical....you decide!

General Science: Mixing Iron and Sulfur

This week we started learning some chemistry. Using a microscope and a magnet the kids explored the properties of 2 elements: sulfur and iron. Then they combined them and determined whether they had performed a physical change or a chemical change.

Here are some of the high points of their results:

iron: black, magnetic
sulfur: yellow, smelly, not magnetic
iron + sulfur: grayish yellow, smelly, BUT easily separated from each other with a magnet

Physical or chemical....you decide!