Year 6 students showed great enthusiasm for learning the concepts of ACIDS, ALKALIS, and NEUTRAL solutions and the use of INDICATORS to identify them. Through various demonstrations where different indicators were added to various solutions, they realised that only the Universal Indicator could identify strong or weak acids, strong or weak alkalis, and neutral solutions.
They were also shown that acids like to react, whereas alkalis do not react with metals or metal carbonates. They loved the 'squeaky pop' produced when a lighted splint was introduced into the test tube with the hydrogen produced when the acid reacted with magnesium and were very surprised to see that the carbon dioxide produced by the reaction of acid with carbonate 'extinguished' the flame.
The students thoroughly enjoyed making indicators using red cabbage and loved the beautiful colours produced by the different solutions. Unfortunately, the beetroot did not give different colours. The students, therefore, concluded that red cabbage was a very good indicator.
All the students behaved very maturely in the laboratory and said that they loved the experiments.
