Hurumanu - White Powder

Today you will be a Forensic Chemist. 

A bag of white powder has been confiscated by the airport customs.  You need to find out what white powder it is?

Aim: To learn about the makeup of different white powders.

There are  a number of different white powders in our everyday life. Some of these are harmful and others are not. Test the four white powders listed to see which one has been found at the airport.

Here are some examples of everyday kitchen white powders.

Flour, Cornflour, Sugar, Salt, Baking Soda, Baking Powder, Icing Sugar, Tartaric Acid

Citric Acid, Gluten Free flour

You will be given a small amount of 4 white powders on your cardboard. On the black cardboard using a magnifying glass look at the powders.

Look at them under your magnifying glass and record what you see.  

These are the four powders we will be using. Upload a photo of each powder. 

1.  Cornflour
2.  Baking Soda
3.  Salt
4.  Sugar 

Before you add the iodine, vinegar or water you will need to divide each powder into 3.

Materials

1. Pipette
2. Vinegar 
3. Iodine 
4. Water 
5. Salt 
6. Sugar  
7. Baking Soda

Steps:

1. Fold cardboard in four
2. Write in each box on the card what powder will go inside
3. Put the powders onto the cardboard
4. Divide each powder into threes
5. Add three drops of vinegar, water and iodine into one pile of the powders.
6. Wait and see if their will be a reaction

Findings:

	Sugar	Salt	Baking Soda	Cornflour
Appearance	Turns into a light brown colour	Just turned black	Changed into a weird marble colour.	Turned into a blob and went stiff
Texture	Just felt like normal sugar.	Just felt like normal salt.	Just felt like normal baking soda.	Stiff and Hard
Smell	Didn't have a smell	Didn't have a smell	Smells bad	Smells bad
Iodine	Turned light brown	Turned black	Changed colour	It went hard and turned black
Water	No reaction	No reaction	No reaction	It rolled off the cornflour
Vinegar	No reaction	Just made a gray stain	Once you add the drops in, it blows up a bubble.	No reaction

Write a paragraph about your findings:

Today in Science our experiment was involved with powder. The experiment was called White powder. I was in a group with Chloe and Keyana. What we had to do was to get a cardboard and fold it into four boxes, then we wrote down the four powders which are Baking soda, Sugar, Salt and Cornflour in each box and waited for the teachers to pour the powders on the cardboard. 

After that, we added three drops of iodine on each powder and watched for a reaction, then we did the same for the others with Vinegar and water. 
They all had their own reactions and my most favourite one was the cornflour with the iodine. 

I think the best reaction was the cornflour and iodine, because the iodine made the cornflour turn hard and stiff. The other powders only turned into different colours and some had no reaction.