AHHH! It's freezing..oh wait, now it's melting?

Ring stand and test tube.

Today we did a lab on matter and its changes: heating and cooling curves of a pure substance. (supposedly it was dodecanoic acid?). The purpose? To investigate the heating and cooling rates and determine the melting and freezing points of the substance.

First off, we started with our goggles! SAFETY EQUIPMENT FIRST EVERYONE!!! Anyways, we began the cooling of our substance. Placing the thermometer in the test tube, we lowered it into a beaker filled with cool water. We recorded the temperature at each 30 s interval until it reached 25 degrees Celsius. Immediately, we moved onto the next part...

For the heating process, we placed the beaker on a hot plate and then lowered the test tube into it. Once again, we recorded the temperature in 30 s intervals until it reached around 50 degrees Celsius. Also, we recorded any other observations. Once we finished, we cleaned up, washed our hands (don't skip this step! It's important..cause you never know what might happen if there's still some of the substance on your hands), and began to work on the lab reports. Most important step of the day was to NOT pour the substance down the drain...otherwise it would solidify and nothing would be able to get through that drain!

Next class, we'll be finishing off our lab reports and graphs!