1. MysteryFountainGully

Transcription

1. MysteryFountainGully
Mystery at Fountain Gully
You will be asked to conduct research and suggest strategies to help an investigator in
the imaginary situation described.
Scenario
NEWS FLASH: Environmental disaster prevented
People from the local area may have prevented an environmental disaster at Fountain Gully
by retrieving drums of freight from a river today. The drums are from a goods train that had
come off the rails. What has made it a bit tricky is that the labels washed off and nobody
knows what is in which drums. An investigator has been appointed to find out what is in them.
To help work out what the materials are in the containers, the investigator has asked for a
listing of the goods being carried on the train the drums came from.
The train was carrying the following:
Iron
Aluminium
Sulfur
Magnesium
Silicon
In this imaginary situation the investigator has set up a laboratory with numbered samples of
the elements, ready for them to be identified.
Your task will be to research data and advise the investigator how the elements in the drums
can be identified.
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Identifying the elements
One of the ways that elements might be told apart is by their physical appearance. The
investigator says that some of the samples cannot be told apart by their appearance because
they are silvery 1 cm cubes with a metallic lustre.
Elements may be told apart by chemical or physical properties.
Your research task will be to fill out the research data table below by researching the
identified properties.
You may collect this data from an online search, or reference works suggested by your
teacher.
TASK A: Complete this table
Researching properties of elements
Element
Magnetic
Conductivity
Burns in air
Density
Colour
Mg
Si
Fe
Al
S
Once you have collected this data, participate in the class discussion of the properties found.
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Task B: Compile a flow chart
The investigator wants to test the materials so as to compare the properties of the samples
with this data that you have now researched.
Construct a flow chart to show how these properties can be used to identify the samples.
YOUR FLOW CHART
Once you have completed this task be ready to share the strategies you have chosen in
discussion with your teacher.
Reflect on whether there would be other strategies from the ones you have selected.
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