Background: We have begun work on the rusting work sample. I am required to grade at least one science work sample for each of you this year using the state scoring guide. We did a practice work sample in December on solubility. For that one, I was able to check your question, give you feedback and let you get feedback from other students. This time it’s all up to you, to use what you have learned from the practice work samples. You will design, do and analyze your own experiment. I will evaluate the final draft only. I will record the scores from these work samples in a permanent record that will follow you through high school.
What is the topic? I would like for you to focus your work sample on the rusting of steel nails. One reason I have chosen this topic is that we have done several experiments about rusting already, so you have some background knowledge of the topic. We have been studying corrosion in class, and you know from the steel wool experiment that rusting is a chemical reaction between oxygen and iron. You also know from 23.2 that rusting is worse when moisture is present.
For this work sample, you should choose to focus on one of two areas.
1. What factors make rusting worse? (you will be a lot more specific than that with your question). You may consider different environments including different liquids, chemicals, temperature, light
2. What things can be done to prevent or reduce rusting? There are many methods used in the real world to reduce or prevent rusting. You may choose several of these and compare how well they work. (paint, galvanized, grease, more reactive metal, less reactive metal coating)
Whichever one you choose, you will need a control (like we had in the steel wool experiment). For example if you want to test what prevents rusting in nails, you will need to have an unprotected nail that does rust during the time frame of the experiment in order to demonstrate whether your prevention techniques work.
If you want to see what makes rusting worse, you will also need a control to show the amount of rust that would occur under normal (moist) conditions. Please produce your final draft of the work sample on the computer and be sure to edit it. Make sure that your question and hypothesis are related. Also be sure that your procedure will provide data to answer your question; and that your conclusion answers your question. Your actual data may be visual rather than quantitative and measured. You may use digital photographs, drawings or a rating scale to show your results.
Good Luck! Here is a blank template for the work sample document.
3. Accessing your work: If you need to access the Files 1 Server from home, you can go to this link http://ns.lane.edu/?q=node/29 for directions. It will direct you to download something caleed a VPN, which will make your computer think it is in a 4j building (by using your username and password). The Files 1 server address is afp://files1.4j.lane.edu. Good Luck! (Sometimes a jump drive is easier, but this works and I use it all the time)