First experiments with Chem-X1000

I am Science Man, Jr., SciManJr for short. I am 8 years old.

In this blog, I write my science experiments and projects.

Today I did experiments with my chemistry kit. I use chemistry kit called Chem-X1000 Science Lab.Today, February 14 2010, I started my experiments. First, we assembled the scale. Then we weighed a big paper clip. Then we weighed a penny, and a dime, and a nickel.

Here is the picture.

We found that penny was 3g 170mg, which is the same as 3170 mg.

Dime was 2g 350mg.

Nickel was heavy and we run out of half-gram weights. We used a dime, which is 2350 mg, and 2 g of weights, and the scale was 875 mg. All together, nickel is 5g 225 mg.

Next experiment was called Paper Chromatography. It is experiment number CH1 in the Chem-X1000 Manual.

We cut up sides on the top of chromatography paper, we put a marker dot on the place where we cut the paper (see the pictures), we made holes in the bottom of the paper strip. This way we made 3 strips, and spots were made with markers: blue, green, and red. And we hung them of the straightened paper clip.

Then we put three strips in a glass of water, hanging on the wire, so that only the tips of the paper strips touched the water. Here is the picture of how the strips are hanging in the glass with water.

The paint from the marker spot spread all the way up to the top of the paper and showed what colors it was made from.

My next experiment was D1 in the Manual. It was about bubbling chemicals. We got all our supplies ready. We got some table salt because it is sodium chloride, and our experiment was to break it into elements.

We mixed some water and salt. We took pencil leads and wires and attached to 9V battery. It is a normal square battery. We put the pencil leads into salty water, and we see bubbles coming out. And it smelled like chlorine. The pencil leads looked like started to burn.

My brother helped to hold one of the leads, and I was holding the other. Then my dad dropped phenolphthalein into the water, and it became purple and bubbly.