Crystal growing
Introduction
My name is Matthew Marchetti and I
am a 6th grader. I am homeschooled and
I only do Science in FLVS. (Physics 1) I
am especially interested in Geology and
collecting things like rock samples and
growing crystals.
My purpose is to test if a crystal
will grow bigger in distilled water,
spring water, mineral, or purified
water
Research
I looked up (http://www.sciencefairprojects.org/chemistry-projects/growing-acrystal.html) to get my research.
Hypothesis
If crystals are grown in mineral water, then
they will grow bigger in the same amount of
time, than they will in distilled water, spring
water, or purified water.
Materials
Alum
Distilled water
Spring water
Mineral water
Purified water
4 glass containers
Microwave
Stirring stick
Scale in 10th of
grams
Procedure
1.Pour a cup of mineral water into a glass.
2.Heat the cup with the water in the microwave for one minute.
3.Pour in 2 ½ tbsp. of alum and stir for one minute with the stir
stick.
4.Set the glass in a place where it can not be disturbed.
5.Repeat steps 1 through 4 with the other water samples.
Procedure
6.Place a paper over the 4 glasses.
7.Wait 48 hours.
8.Pull out and examine.
9.Weigh the crystals you have obtained.
10.Write down your results.
Discussion
(Observations)
1.
2.
When we mixed the alum into the water samples, all the
alum was dissolved, and the water looked murky.
It only took twelve hours for the crystals to form. The
crystal was shaped like a hexagon as you can see in the
picture at the top left corner. The biggest crystal was
about 1.5 inches across. As you see, its shape is irregular
so we could not measure it precisely with a ruler.
Discussion
(Observations 2)
3. I weighed the crystals in the Biology Lab at
Valencia College. We thought it would be better
to weigh all the crystals in the bowl rather than
just the “bigger” crystals.
Discussion
(Errors)
In our experiment we had some errors.
1. I noticed that we used a different brand of
alum for the purified for the first experiment.
Also I thought the dust in the air could affect
the growth procedure of the crystals.
Discussion
(Errors 2)
2. I know there are some unknown variables in my
experiment that I did not notice. In the second
experiment we had to redo the mineral water
because it did not have enough alum.
3. Also, we thought that two tsp. equal one tbsp.. In
addition, the equipment in Valencia College
introduced errors.
Data
Type of water
Weight for Exp. 1
Weight for Exp. 2
Mineral
19g
25.5g
Distilled
18.6g
24.7g
Spring
20.3g
26.1g
Purified
10.1g
24.7g
Analysis
Weight of Crystals in Grams
30
Exp.1
25
Exp. 2
grams
20
15
10
5
0
spring
purified
distilled
mineral
Experiment 1 Crystals
Experiment 2 Crystals
Conclusion
My hypothesis was incorrect.
Fortunately, I learned that spring water
grows crystals with more weight than
distilled water, purified water etc..
I am very thankful to my dad for
helping me with this experiment.