Purpose:
We learned about the transitions between the different phases, such as sublimation and deposition. With dry ice (CO2 when it's solid) we can learn more about that because we can see it happening in front of our eyes. We also learned about the molecules in those phases and the room between them, and we used dry ice to see the distance expand between the molecules in each phase. We also learned how math can be used in science an that they're not two completely different subjects.
Looking Back: We had to do two main experiments which were take a piece of dry ice and put it in to a beaker of water and put a small piece of dry ice in to a balloon. With the first we can see the molecules in the dry ice become farther a part to create a gas and with the second one we can see a solid turn straight in to a gas to fill the balloon.
The First Experiment:
For the first experiment we just took a piece of dry ice that was roughly a cm in diameter and put it in to a small beaker of water. I was weary of touching the dry ice because I'd been told in the past it would "burn" your hands but it was also exciting being able to do something I wasn't allowed to do as a kid. I barely touched it, passing it around the table but it was still fun. I didn't really know how the water was going to change and I was really surprised when it started to bubble like it was boiling around the dry ice and start to become a gas. It produced around 10 cm worth of gas above the water. The first experiment was successful, the dry ice in the water became a gas.
We learned about the transitions between the different phases, such as sublimation and deposition. With dry ice (CO2 when it's solid) we can learn more about that because we can see it happening in front of our eyes. We also learned about the molecules in those phases and the room between them, and we used dry ice to see the distance expand between the molecules in each phase. We also learned how math can be used in science an that they're not two completely different subjects.
Looking Back: We had to do two main experiments which were take a piece of dry ice and put it in to a beaker of water and put a small piece of dry ice in to a balloon. With the first we can see the molecules in the dry ice become farther a part to create a gas and with the second one we can see a solid turn straight in to a gas to fill the balloon.
The First Experiment:
For the first experiment we just took a piece of dry ice that was roughly a cm in diameter and put it in to a small beaker of water. I was weary of touching the dry ice because I'd been told in the past it would "burn" your hands but it was also exciting being able to do something I wasn't allowed to do as a kid. I barely touched it, passing it around the table but it was still fun. I didn't really know how the water was going to change and I was really surprised when it started to bubble like it was boiling around the dry ice and start to become a gas. It produced around 10 cm worth of gas above the water. The first experiment was successful, the dry ice in the water became a gas.
The Second Experiment:
For the second experiment we took a balloon and a piece of dry ice that was around 2 cm wide. We put it in to the balloon, careful to not hold the dry ice too long or freeze the person holding the balloon open. We closed it off and Sammie shook the balloon until it all fully became a gas. It took a really long time because we used a piece of dry ice that was bigger than what Andrew told us to use but it did slowly inflate. You could feel the dry ice in the balloon and it still hurt when you touched it for too long. In the end, it was successful and the 2 cm wide piece of ice became a 17.78 cm wide balloon. We also learned about the math behind this. You take the radius of the CO2. Find the volume by plugging it in to this equation: 4/3 πr^3. You find the ratio by doing volume of solid CO2/volume of solid CO2 : volume of gaseous CO2 / volume of solid CO2. In this case the radius was 2 cm, we plug it in, get 33.5 as the volume of solid CO2. Then plug in the radius of the gas to get 23,485.3239. Then we find the ratio: 33.5/33.5: 23,485.3239/33.5= 1: 701.0504. So for every 1 cm of solid you get 701 cm of gas.
While the balloon from the second experiment was inflating we tried to do a lot of other things with the dry ice. We took a beaker with dry ice and water and Ash tried to blow a bubble on top of it. When the bubble landed on the beaker, the gas coming out filled the bubble, which eventually popped.
Then we got some bubble soap and just put a piece of dry ice inside. Nothing really happened except gas started flowing out but then we added a bit of water to the soap and a bunch of little bubbles started flowing out. It was so weird how it changed from gas to bubbles filled with the gas.
We got a bigger beaker and filled it with the water and dry ice again, and a little bit of soap instead of the other way around. That created white bubbles that sat on top of the water that quickly filled the beaker. It was amazing how endless it seemed. Every time I tried to grab some dry ice to add to water, I freaked out dropped it. Fortunately, my group mates didn't share my concerns and we were able to get what we wanted done. After a while, Melany thought it would be cool if we the bubbles could be a different color. She tried putting the food coloring straight in to the beaker but the bubbles that kept coming out pushed the dye out. She then got a beaker filled it with water and the dye and put that in to the beaker. The dye did go all the way in but the bubbles remained the same.
The last experiment we did was we took dry ice, put it in to a beaker with water and then went and put a balloon on top. We saw another group do this and it seemed cool so we tried it out too. This way, the balloon filled much quicker than the second experiment. There was so much we could do with dry ice, so I enjoyed this lab a lot.
Looking Beyond:
On a molecular level, since dry ice doesn't melt, under atmospheric pressure it becomes a gas. When it becomes a gas its called sublimation since it doesn't become a liquid first. When we put it in to water, it created cold little bubbles of CO2 that when it hit the air above the water, it created a visible fog. And when that gas is in the bubble soap, the soap surrounds the gas and becomes bubbles. The temperature makes the molecules grow farther apart which results in gas.
There were a lot of questions that were in my head during the lab. Why does dry ice not melt? What happens when it's not under atmospheric pressure? How do molecules become farther apart? And so on. I didn't do much investigating for more of the science behind this but I did google why dry ice reacts the way it does in water.
Looking Inwards:
I thought for the most part we did get desirable results because when we were trying out new things we didn't know exactly what we were looking for, we just wanted to know what would happen and how things would react. The only experiment that didn't really work was when we added food coloring to the bubbling dry ice. I thought it didn't work because the gas in the bubbles were coming from the dry ice, which is white, rather than the water. I thought I performed well because nothing went wrong and I didn't get frostbite.
Looking Outward:
I worked with Sammie, Annika, Ash, Melany, and Natalie on this lab. I thought this lab went really well. We didn't make a huge mess, and whatever we did make we cleaned up. We talked to each other and worked collaboratively on each experiment we tried. We didn't try to hurt each other with the dry ice and we were very careful. I contributed to this group by helping a bit with each experiment, cleaning up, and taking pictures.
Looking Forward:
Maybe look more in to why the food coloring didn't work and learn from our mistakes. I would also probably not be so scared of the dry ice and to actually try to touch it for a little bit longer. Besides that I think we did a lot of experiments and learned a lot from each one. I would work with the same people because we all work really well together. There's probably endless possibilities to see how dry ice reacts to things, and how dry ice is actually made. If I were to continue I would learn more about the different phases of dry ice. I think I would continue to explore this and learn more about it.
Take Aways:
I learned the mathematical equation to find the solid to gas ratio for carbon dioxide. Which tells us how far apart the molecules get when solids become a gas. I learned more about sublimation and how it works. I got more deep in to matter and the different phases. How to experiment and get creative to learn more about something. And how to handle labs that are a bit more dangerous.