Metal Reactivity Lab

Hey guys! So today in class we completed the Metal Reactivity Lab which had some pretty cool reactions in it. We started off the class, however, with watching some videos about Metal reactions and how the place on the periodic table corresponds with how strong a metal reacts with water (H2O). Both videos showed some pretty cool explosions and in case you want to watch it again, the episode of Braniacs is below even though everyone knows the explosions were fake :/

After the videos, we proceeded on with the lab. We began by taking a well plate and filling three wells with H2O, three wells with phenolphthalein, and three wells with HCl. Next, we took three pieces of magnesium ribbon, three pieces of aluminum ribbon, and three pieces of calcium metal and put one piece of each in their own wells in each of the liquids. We observed the reactions that took place and recorded them in a data table that will go into our lab books. It is a pretty straight forward lab and hopefully you understand the main idea that as you move down a column on the periodic table, elements become reactive in contrast to when you move across a period and the metals become less reactive.  The images below show what happened in the the experiment. There are no picture of the elements in phenolphthalein because no reactions occurred.  

Magnesium in HCl

Calcium in HCl

Aluminum in HCl

Aluminum in H20

Calcium in H2O

Calcium in H2O

Magnesium in H2O

I hope you guys have a good weekend and I would just like to remind you that the Alternate Universe Periodic table is due Monday along with this lab. The test is Tuesday and the Webassigns are due that days as well! 

Next scribe will be Chris!! Don't worry it's not that bad :P