Tomas Pinto De Sousa

Can grade 9 students separate a mixture of sand, salt, iron filings and paper clips with 100% accuracy?
Introduction: The lab we did was on separating components that our science teacher gave to us. The ways in which you can separate them are by using magnets, filtering or evaporation. The physical properties of the mixture were magnetic, dissolve and cant dissolve. The clips would come together with the magnet because of attraction. The salt dissolved in the water after you mixed it a lot with the mixing stick. The magnet was also used to separate the iron fillings from the other mixtures. The sand could not be dissolved to separate. Items that were used in the lab were a hot plate, filter paper and a magnet.

Hypothesis: I think grade 9 students will not be able to separate it with 100% accuracy because the experiment was not all done in the same day and we stopped a lot of times inbetween the experiment. Another thing is there is always something left behind such as an iron filling which stayed stuck to the sand. The more times you leave the experiment the less chance you have of having it perfect. Materials: Paper Clips Stirring rod Salt Iron fillings Magnet Beakers Funnel Sand Filter Paper Heating Plate Brush Method: 1) Put a funnel on a beaker and drop the components inside the other beaker so the paper clips are separated. 2) Place the paper clips in another beaker

Tomas Pinto De Sousa 3) 4) 5) 6) Grab the magnet and attract the iron fillings and put it in another beaker. Make a filter with filter paper and mix water with sand and salt. Stir the salt and water with a stirring rod. Put the water that is mixed with salt and sand in the filter paper so that the sand is separated. 7) Place the sand in another beaker 8) Filter the salt to water in the beaker with stirring rod then heat it with a heating plate. 9) Filter the sand beaker again in case of still having little pieces of salt. 10) Brush the old filter papers with sand and salt off and add them to the corresponding beakers. Results: Name: Mass of Components
Element Initial mass (g) (True mass given by teacher) 33.5 23.5 8.5 10.9 Final mass (g) (Experimental mass) 36.1 26.8 7.1 10.8 Increase or decrease in mass (g) (Final initial mass) * 2.6 3.3 -1.4 -0.1 Percentage error * *See analysis for calculations 7.76% 14.04% -16.47% -0.91%

Sand Table salt Iron filings Paper clips

Analysis: % Error for sand: (experimental value) (true value) % error = true value % error = = (36.1-33.5)g x 100 33.5 g 7.76%

X 100

% Error for table salt: (experimental value) (true value) % error = true value % error = = (26.8-23.5)g x 100 23.5 g 14.04%

X 100

% Error for Iron filings: (experimental value) (true value) % error = true value % error = (7.1-8.5)g x 100 8.5 g = -16.47%

X 100

Tomas Pinto De Sousa

% Error for Paper clips: (experimental value) (true value) % error = true value % error = = (10.8-10.9)g x 100 10.9 -0.91%

X 100

Discussion: Sand weighted 33.5 and increased by 2.6 to become 36.1 in the final mass. In this case sand may have mixed with water and made it heavier. Salt got heavier from 23.5 to 26.8. Maybe we didnt let it boil for enough time so there was still water remaining in the salt that caused it to be heavier. We lost iron fillings because we dropped them on the floor while putting it in the beaker. Conclusion: Our hypothesis is correct because the answer didnt come the same as it was at first. Getting it 100% completely right is hard because this takes perfect passing from one beaker to another, heating the right minutes and filtering over and over again. Even then the answer may be still off. Our only problem was when we dropped iron fillings because this messed with the final mass of iron filings we got. In the future to add to the experiment I think we can add more components to separate. We can try new ways to separate them or just separate more components.