Did the investigation work?

We realised that we could get an awful lot of particles, in our mixture, out of the water through sieving and filtering.  However, no matter how careful we were and how fine a filter we used, the water would not come clean and clear.

Mr Swallow introduced us to the concept of mixtures and solutions Mixtures can be separated by filtering BUT solutions can’t.  Therefore, the dirty water left in our cups after all that sieving MUST be a solution!!!

Mr Swallow challenged us to come up with an experiment to separate the solution and finally purify the water.  We brainstormed all the things we could do to a liquid, we came up with:  pour it (done that), shake it (done that), drink it (errr!!!!), soak it up (good idea), heat it up, cool it down or add something to it.

Each team chose which approach to take and planned their experiment.  Mr Swallow ran around school and popped to the shop at lunch to get all the equipment we needed and off we went.  Investigating whether our idea would separate the solution or not…

Some teams soaked up the water with a sponge or kitchen roll, then squeezed it out to see if that would separate the solution…it didn’t.

Some teams added chemicals, such as Milton, hand sanitizer or washing up liquid, to see if that would work.  It probably killed off any germs but we still wouldn’t want to drink it!

Some teams cooled down the solution by freezing it in an ice cube tray or adding ice to it to “grab” the particles (nice idea as it works with salt if you put too much in your cooking!).  It didn’t work here though!

The final team opted for heating the solution.  They boiled it in a pan on Mr Swallow’s camping stove and as the liquid evaporated into steam, they collected it in half of a bottle (with Mr Swallow’s help and his oven gloves!!!), where it condensed back into clean, clear water!  success!  In order to separate the water from the solution, we had to turn it into a vapour and then back to a liquid.

Well done everyone, we may just survive this journey after all!

 

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27 thoughts on “Did the investigation work?

  1. Our water has been CONTAMINATED on the ship and we need to FILTER it to make it safe to drink!!

    Chloe and Isla

  2. Our team chose to try and soak the dirt out of the water with the sponge but unfortunately it didn’t work.

    Alfie

  3. My team added a chemical into our water to try and clean it. The chemical that we used was Washing up Liquid but it only killed the germs, it didn’t clean the water.

    Chloe

  4. My team decided to soak the water up with a sponge. We thought that it would leave the dirt in the bowl but it only moved the water into different containers

    Lucy B

  5. Our experiment didn’t work because we were hoping that we could soak up all of the water with a sponge and it would capture the dirt and then transfer the water not the dirt into a cup

    Ellie B

  6. My team put some water in a cup and put dirt in it then we tried to soak all the dirt out but it didn’t get all of it out.

    Isla

  7. I did the sponge experiment so we dip it in to the mucky water and we thought it would work but unfotunly it didn’t work
    By Jessica

  8. Our team did chemicals and put washing liquid in the dirty water. sadly, the washing liquid made the water more slimy but got rid of the germs

    William

  9. Our team decided to put a chemical into our dirty water.We used washing up liquid because we thought it would get all the germs out. Unfortunately, it didn’t work but it did clean all the germs out. In the end it turned really goopy and almost turned turned to slime!

    Mirren

  10. The experiment did not work for our team because we thought that hand gel would clean the soulution because hand gel cleans your hands so we thought it would clean the water

    Ruby

  11. You guys were all amazing. You used your imagination and came up with some great experiments to try to separate the solution…I loved the ideas; like the hand gel killing germs, the paper towels soaking up the water and leaving behind the contaminent or the ice attracting the dirty particles. Just because they weren’t successful doesn’t mean they were not great ideas to investigate! Real scientists make lots of failed attempts on their path to success!
    I am very proud of you all, I’ll have to think up something equally tricky for our next science task : )

    Mr Swallow

  12. Thank you Mr swallow for doing all of these fun things with us I really enjoyed it I am at school today because my mum is working our team did the hand gel #teamworkalwaysmakesadreamwork

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