This short activity uses Elmer’s Disappearing Purple Glue as an interactive introduction to acid-base indicators.
Learn a bit about the chemical reactions that occur during a lightning strike, and how you can demonstrate these reactions in your classroom.
You can solve Chemical Mystery #20 if you know your chemistry...and your magic!
In this blog the author describes how three components of a water tower reservoir is analogous to an acid-base buffer system.
Recently, Josh Kenney took time from his regular scheduled chemistry curriculum to investigate a student's claim that chocolate cake was an acid-base indicator.
Balloons that inflate using carbon dioxide produced from the reaction of citric acid and sodium hydrogen carbonate can be used to demonstrate a number of aspects of chemistry. Gas laws were used with the balloons to illustrate limiting reactants, molar mass of gases, and rockets. The endothermic reaction in the balloon was visualized with an infrared camera, and the Green Chemistry aspects of these balloons were considered.
Did you figure out how to create a multi-colored mixture? Check out the solution to Chemical Mystery #19: Multi-colored Mixture!
This blog post includes short descriptions of demonstrations and props that Dean Campbell has used while teaching his collegiate General Chemistry I course.
Natural food dyes are being sold online and in stores that can be used as acid-base indicators. These dyes open up a host of possibilities for at-home and in-class. For example, these food dyes can be used as indicators in the quantitative titration of the Mg(OH)2 in milk of magnesia.
Thermal paper such as that used for point of sale receipts typically functions by darkening when exposed to heat. The pigment system used in this paper also darkens when exposed to solvents of intermediate polarity and acids. This enables thermal paper to be used as an inexpensive sort of indicator paper for a variety of demonstrations.
