Dear Dexter School,My school class and I discovered what the mystery powder was! It was hard, but we did it! The mystery with the powder that you found on the Dexter School yard that nobody could figure out has been solved! There were six possible powders, and three of them were in the mystery powder. The powders were: baking soda, salt, corn starch, citric acid, calcium carbonate, and sugar. The first thing that we did was to observe the powder. They were color coded too. The mystery powder was made up of corn starch, salt, and baking soda. I figured that out that these were in the mystery powder by using iodine, vinegar, phenol red, alcohol, and phenolphthalein. When you drop phenol red on the powder, it indicates if it is an acid or not. PT tells you if it is a base or not. Iodine tells you if its a starch or not. I know that the powders in the mystery powder are what they are because when we tested the mystery powder with vinegar, it fizzed. When we observed it with a hand lens, it had little crystals from the salt. When we dropped iodine on the mystery powder, it turned oily black. When we compared it with our notes, we saw that the three mystery powders were salt, baking soda, and corn starch. I think that mystery powder came from the Best Buy Bakery because they use salt, baking soda, and corn starch. Maybe it came from the grocery store because you can buy the powders. I really think it came from the bakery. A truck maybe smashed into a car and spilled all of its contents into the school yard. The crash was at night. The truck drove away very soon after it! I'm so happy that we have solved your mystery and you get to have recess again!!!!!!!!
|
