A Christmas Crime Scene! Christmas Science Chemistry Activity New for 2019!

Some presents have been stolen from under your tree! The police have found 5 clues at the scene of the crime: some different powders, a shoe print, some fibres and a handwritten christmas card. It’s s down to you to use your problem solving skills and knowledge of chromatography and ions tests to determine which of the 32 suspects stole the presents! The only thing you can’t find out is why…

Students should be given the brief and an hour to try to solve all the clues. The 5 clues are:

-A shoe print - they have to problem solve to figure out which of the 6 it is.

-2 different fibres - they must look at the properties of the materials and decide which items of clothing they came from.

- An ionic compound - they must use knowledge of testing for ions to name the compounds and then assign the right name to the powder found at the scene. Don’t worry, there is step by step information for classes that have not yet studied this.

- A second compound - students will use a flow chart to attempt to name this powder!

- A handwritten christmas card from the thief that just says ‘Sorry!’ - Students have to find the Rf values from the chromatograms from the ink at the scene and from the pens found on the suspects.

This is a Christmas crime with a twist! This is geared more towards KS4 chemistry, but I have done it with a few different sets of year 9 groups and they have loved it!

As the teacher, you will control the clues and some of the information about what was found at the scene. The pieces of information given to the students are outlined in the PowerPoint either on slide 1 or in the notes section of the slide.

THERE ARE NO PRACTICALS PLANNED WITH THIS ACTIVITY! ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS SOME PRINTING. You could incorporate practicals in with it if you wanted to, but it is not planned to need any. It is planned to be as low maintainance as possible.