Sherbet.

What is that white powder?

Today you will be a forensic chemist. 

A bag of white powder has been confiscated by the airport customs.  You need to find out what white powder it is?

Aim: To learn about the makeup of different white powders.

There are  a number of different white powders in our everyday life. Some of these are harmful and others are not. Test the four white powders listed to see which one has been found at the airport.

Here are some examples of everyday kitchen white powders.

Flour, Cornflour, Sugar, Salt, Baking Soda, Baking Powder, Icing Sugar, Tartaric Acid

Citric Acid, Gluten Free flour

You will be given a small amount of 4 white powders on your cardboard. On the black cardboard using a magnifying glass look at the powders.

Look at them under your magnifying glass and record what you see. 

These are the four powders we will be using. Upload a photo of each powder. 

1.  Cornflour
2.  Baking Soda 
3.  Salt
4.  Sugar 

Before you add the iodine, vinegar or water you will need to divide each powder into 3.

Materials

1. cardboard 
2.  sugar
3.  salt
4.  cornflour
5.  baking soda
6.   pen
7.  magnifying glass 

Steps

1. get a piece of card
2.  split it into four groups
3.  put all four ingredients on card 
4.  look at with magnifying glass
5. experiment with
6. Done

Findings:

	Sugar	Salt	Baking Soda	Cornflour
Appearance	grains	Grains	bits	bits
Texture	block	blocks	soft	soft
Smell	sweet	gross	disgusting	nothing
Iodine	turned brow and spread	turned brow and spread	went solid	turned purple
Water	wet	wet	soggy	gross
Vinegar	wet	wet	fizzed	dissolved

Write a sentence about your findings.

I found that it depends on what chemicals and substances you use      

Making Sherbet

Once you have completed your blog and cleaned up all your equipment you can make sherbet.

Using the following recipe you can make sherbet.

Sherbet recipe

Recipe: 

1 tsp of powdered drink crystals (eg refresh)
1/4 tsp citric acid
1/2 tsp icing sugar
1/4 tsp -baking soda.
Put all ingredients into a zip lock bag, stir, and enjoy.

Materials:

1.  bag

2. powdered drink crystals

3. citric acid

4. icing sugar

5. baking soda.

Steps

1. get a snap lock bag
2. add citric acid
3. add icing sugar 
4. add drink crystals
5. add baking soda
6. SHAKE!

Findings: I found that the sherbet had a weird taste but fizzed in your mouth

Sherbet
Taste	weird
Colour	red