Students in Ayelet Kopel’s chemistry classes were so excited to get back into the lab after being away that they wasted no time suiting up in their coats and goggles! As part of their unit on classifying and separating matter, the students created a mixture of sand, salt and water and separated it out using filtration and evaporation in a crucible. To solidify their understanding of chromatography (another method of separating mixtures), they took the ink of a black marker and colored it on chromatography paper. The students then watched as a rainbow formed from the different pigments in the ink separated out by the water. Next week TABC’s resident chemists will burn marshmallows to discover how much energy is released using calorimetry. Hopefully there will be leftovers!