Australia's Science Forum

Dear All - Have any others made artificial ore - this is a first for me! I have a recipe - Sand, Copper sulphate and marble chips embedded in Plaster. However I am not sure what Plaster - Plaster of Paris? Plasticine? Any one help?

The Recipe that we use is
Sand
Copper sulphate
marble chips
Plaster of Paris

This works great for us.

A tip is when almost set make an indent into the size squares that youwant and this makes for much easier breaking when it has set.

Good Luck

Thanks Kim, you are a gem. You've gotta love this site!!! Cheers. Judy.

Hello,

When we do earth science and the teachers want artifical ore we make up a version with choclate and lollies. Works as well as the other version and the studnts can eat it after.

Regards
Michelle

Dear Michpull

Do you melt the chocolate and put the lollies in that??
What do the kids use to do their mining??

Another interesting prac for earth science is the mining of chocolate chips out of chocolate chip biscuits ! The kids get an amount of "money" out of which the have to buy their mining lease and their mining equipment( tooth picks, probes,etc) They put the biscuit mine on grid paper and then mine the choc chips. Any area of the grid paper that has crumbs on it they have to reclaim/ restore at the end and this comes out of their profits from the choc chips. The kids really enjoyed this.

Lorrae

Hello,

Yes we melt the choclate and then add different lollies to represent different components of the soil, eg cut up red frogs for metals, molteasers for fossels.

The students mine the chocloate with tooth picks, butter knifes and if they ask we have little hammers to pounding the rock.

Disposal of the slag is not a problem.

Regards
Michelle

Good Morning Everyone,
what a way to start the day.....Hot Water Service leaked over the weekend...pools of water in three rooms.
Now this.... I have prepared ore with Copper Sulphate....my question is .... what acid should we use? We use Sulphuric when using Copper Carbonate. Haven't got enough Copper Carbonate hence the use of Copper Sulphate?
Thanks in advance
Rita