Table of Contents Chapter 8: CSI Chemistry |
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Chapter ChallengeYou are challenged to create a crime scene and to prepare evidence that requires the use of at least three forensic chemistry techniques learned in this chapter in order to solve the crime. Before developing the story for the crime-show episode, you will need to analyze the evidence created in the laboratory and to determine which pieces the detectives in the show will use to solve the crime. Your crime story should include a police report, description of the crime, a diagram of the crime scene, a list of all the evidence found at the scene, and a thorough discussion of the chemical concepts used. |
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Activity Summaries |
Chemistry Principles |
Activity 1: Clue Me In In this activity, students use their deductive reasoning skills to identify elements based on clues about their properties, names, position on the periodic table, and history. Next, students work collaboratively to gather evidence and solve a crime using deductive reasoning. |
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Activity 2: Distinguishing Glass Fragments In this activity, students determine the density of a glass sample using the slope method. They compare the density of their sample to the density of another group’s sample to determine if they have the same type of glass.
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Activity 3: Presumptive Blood Testing: The Luminol Reaction In this activity, students learn the principles of chemiluminescence while testing bovine hemoglobin with luminol reagent. These principles include ground state, excited state, energy levels and catalysis. They also study the formation of ions through the gain or loss of electrons. |
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Activity 4: Are Atoms Indivisible? In this activity students learn how to use and read a flow chart. They will also create a flow chart that will identify six white powders. The creation of the flow chart will be based on the chemical and physical properties of the six white powders with which they experiment. |
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Activity 5: The Electronic Behavior of Atoms Students learn how to use a double-replacement reaction and an oxidation-reduction reaction to develop invisible fingerprints on paper. |
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Activity 6: Metal Activity Series Students add metals to different ionic solutions to create a smaller version of the activity series. |
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Activity 7: Serial-Number Etching In this activity, students stamp a serial number into a piece of metal and then apply what they have learned about single-replacement reactions to restore that serial number after it has been obliterated. Next, they build and manipulate a clay model in order to understand what happens to metal atoms when they are stamped and how the changes caused by stamping allow restoration of serial numbers. |
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Activity 8: Chromatographic Capers In Part A, students perform a separation of black marker dye. In Part B, they create a model of the separation process to learn how it separates the different dyes in the ink. In this model a felt board is used to represent the paper and different colored poker chips represent the dyes in the marker ink. Finally, in Part C, they create a set of standard chromatograms Rfvalue of different black inks. They are then given an unknown sample of black ink and asked to determine the brand of ink. |
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