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What are metals like?
You will be testing six objects, each of which is made of a different material.
Test 1: Conducting heat
Apparatus
· beaker · iron · wood
· kettle · copper · glass
· stopclock · plastic · aluminium
Planning
1 What do we mean when we say that something
is a good conductor of heat?
2 How could you use the apparatus above to decide
which of the substances in the diagram are good
conductors and which are not? Write down a plan for your experiment.
What will you have to do to keep yourself and others in the classroom safe?
3 Predict the results that you think you will get. Explain why you think you will get these results.
Recording your results
4 When your teacher has checked your plan, carry out your experiment and record the results in a suitable way. Explain why the readings you took gave you enough information.
Test 2: Conducting electricity
Set up a circuit like this:
Planning
5 What do we mean when we say that
something is a good conductor of electricity?
6 How could you use the apparatus above to
decide which of the substances shown in the diagram are good conductors and which are not? Write down a plan for your experiment.
Predicting
7 Will the good conductors of heat also be good conductors of electricity? Explain your answer.
Recording your results
8 When your teacher has checked your plan, carry out your experiment and record the results in a suitable way. Explain why you chose to record this information in this way.
Test 3: How heavy?
You will be given blocks of each of the materials. Don’t touch any of them yet!
Predicting
9 Without picking up any of the blocks, predict which will be the heaviest. Write down your prediction putting all six blocks in order, heaviest first.
Planning
10 Which variable will you need to measure to compare the ‘heaviness’ of the blocks?
11 What apparatus will you need?
12 What variable will need to be the same in this experiment to make it a fair test?
Recording your results
13 Carry out your experiment and record the results in a suitable way.
14 Put the substances in order from the heaviest to the lightest. How good was your prediction?
Considering your results/conclusions
15 Based on the results of all your experiments, which substances would you say are metals, and which are not? Do you have enough information to make a decision?
16 From the results of your experiments, write down:
a three properties of metals
b three properties of materials that are not metals.
17 What other properties could help you decide whether something was a metal or a not? What would the result be for metals in each case?
18 If the blocks in Test 3 had been different sizes, how could you take this into account so that you still had a fair comparison? What measurements would you need to make? What calculations would you need to do?
Can you...
> plan and carry out tests to decide whether a substance is a metal or non-metal
> record results in a clear way
> draw a conclusion
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