When introducing acid-base theory, the concept of indicators and their pH color changes is usually discussed. To illustrate some color transitions to students, a classroom demonstration has been devised based on a memorable scene from Disney’s 1964 movie Mary Poppins.
The familiar soda fountains that can be produced by adding Mentos candies to plastic bottles of carbonated beverages can also be produced by adding objects to carbonated beverages in aluminum cans. A variety of simple methods for producing soda fountains from cans are described.
Check out the solution to Chemical Mystery #18: Peek A Boo Blue!
Can you use your knowledge of chemistry to figure out what is going on in this blue/green/yellow/blue color change?
The differing electrostatic and solubility properties of starch and polystyrene foam packing peanuts are used in various demonstrations to describe aspects of microplastics and their interactions with the environment. Their differing responses to exposure to liquid nitrogen and iodine solutions are also described.
Some explorations and explanations regarding superconductors and the quantum levitation (also known as quantum locking) experiment.
Beautiful, metallic mirrors of copper or silver can easily be formed in test tubes. Simply add the appropriate metal salt to a test tube, and heat! These reactions should be performed in a fume hood.
This post describes a simple way to generate blue, green, orange, and yellow copper complexes, and to use these complexes to introduce students to the effect of temperature on chemical equilibria. The protcol avoids the use of caustic agents, allowing the experiments to be conducted by students as a laboratory-based investigation.
The many colors of springtime can be illustrated with photochromic pigments in commercial products. These products include UV beads, and more recently, photochromic glue. The glue can be used as a photochromic paint for paper or even eggs. The resulting colorful, decorative objects can be used to illustrate chemical discussions of aspects of photochemistry.
Assembling a large graduated cylinder with colored sugar solutions of various densities is described. By filling the cylinder in the reverse order from bottom up, very little mixing occurs resulting in an attractive classroom demonstration to illustrate density. Students also have to opportunity to practice density and dilution calculations.
