Mineral Lab Questions
1. This lab is a scientific experiment. Its question is “what mineral is inside the earring?” What is a possible hypothesis? Remember to write it in the correct hypothesis format. HINT: the independent variable is what you believe the earring is made of and the dependent variable is something that comes from your data table.
2. Do you think the material you tested in today’s lab is diamond? Support your opinion with at least three observations from today’s lab.
3. Pretend for a moment that you are a geologist. You’ve been hiking through the Outback in Australia and you find an interesting rock that you’ve never before seen. You take the rock to your lab and decide you want to find out what kind of minerals are in it. Of the seven tests you did in today’s lab, which three tests would be the most useful for determining what kind of rock you found? Justify your answer.
4. In science, data are reliable if you can rely on them. In other words the data don’t change. For example, if I perform an experiment 10 times, my data are reliable if my results are the “about the same” every time I perform the experiment. Design an experiment that involves a rock. What would you do to ensure your data are reliable?