How much salt will one teaspoon of water dissolve?
For this experiment you will need:
salt
a small glass jar with a lid
water
measuring spoons
Follow these step:
Carefully measure out 3 Tablespoons of cold water into the jar.
Now measure out 1/8 teaspoon of salt and put it into the jar with the water. Put the lid on the container and shake it. Keep shaking until the salt is completely dissolved. To determine whether it has completely dissolved, hold the container up to the light and look carefully at the bottom, or open the lid and look into it. If you see little grains of salt there, it is not completely dissolved, so keep shaking until it looks the same each time you look.
If the salt does not dissolve completely after five minutes of vigorous shaking, write this in your notebook and go on to step 4. If the salt dissolves completely, add another 1/8 teaspoon of salt and repeat the process. Repeat over and over, keeping track of how many 1/8 teaspoons you add. Stop when you can’t get the salt to dissolve no matter how hard or long you shake the container.
Record how much salt you were able to dissolve in the 3 Tablespoons of water in the solubility data table.
Repeat steps 1-4, but this time using very warm or hot water. Before you do it, run the jar under hot water to warm it up so the water doesn’t cool off right away. Be sure to use the exact same amounts of water and salt as you did the first time. The only variable should be the temperature of the water.
Record your results, and then compare with your previous results.
Were there any differences in the amount of salt that dissolved in the warm water versus the cold water?
Write a conclusion based on your results, using the terms “temperature” and “solubility.”
Based on your results, answer this question: If the oceans of the earth got warmer from global warming, would the water of the oceans become more or less salty? What do you think the effect of this change in the ocean salinity (saltiness) would be on the plants and animals that live in the ocean?
