Dear Dexter School Board,           

By Maria    

        After doing a lot of tests I figured out what your mysterious powder was. Before I figured out what was in the mystery powder, I had to analyze the powder and see if it had the same reaction with different liquids.  We also had other powders to do the same test to and those powders were baking soda, salt, corn starch, citric acid, calcium carbonate, and sugar.  And for liquids we used iodine, phenol red, phenolphthalein, vinegar, water, alcohol and oil. 

        We figured out that the mystery powder was cornstarch, baking soda, and salt. My group figured out that when corn starch and iodine get mixed together it turns black and sticky. The same thing happened to the mystery powder, so that told us that there was corn starch in the mystery powder. We figured out that there was baking soda in the powder because we know that when baking soda and vinegar get mixed together they bubble and fizz which means gas is being released. When the mystery powder was mixed with vinegar it had the same reaction,  meaning that there was baking soda in the mystery powder.

        Then my group figured out that there was salt in the powder. We knew that salt has crystals that don't look like sugar crystals. We could tell the difference by looking under the hand lens. So that told us there was salt in the powder.

        One of the places where the powder came from  could be the Grocery Store because first of all, all of those ingredients are found in a Grocery Store. I think that a truck load of these items was on its way to bringing  a load and some of the load fell out of the truck onto the Dexter School Yard.

        Now the Dexter School doesn't have to worry. And hopefully if something like this happens again they will come to us.        

                         to go to Orchard School Home Page.

                          to go to my 4th grade web page.

                          to go to our class page.      

                         to go to my 5th grade web page.

Page created by Ms. Marcell's class.

This page last updated: 08/28/04