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Penny Lab Report

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During this experiment, one penny stayed almost the same, while the other one turned green and completely changed. The experiments started with two cups. One was labeled water, while the other one was labeled vinegar. In each cup, paper towels were placed at the bottom. In the cup labeled vinegar, vinegar was added and in the cup labeled water, water was added. Then, one penny was placed in each cup and observed on a span of four days. On the first day, penny A (cup with water) looked the same. Penny B (cup with vinegar) had a strong smell and the penny looked shinier. Later on in the week, penny A looked a little brown but mainly stayed the same. Penny B had some bubbles, rusting, and started to become darker. Toward the end of the experiment, …show more content…

Penny A stayed the same, while penny B had a chemical change. The penny started to turn green by the vinegar that was put on it. The vinegar is a chemical and caused the penny to change chemically. Even though the penny still looks like a penny, the reaction from the experiment clearly showed that the change was a chemical change (a substance that is turned into something new). A reason that the penny that was in vinegar changed so much, compared to the penny that was in water is because of oxidation. Oxidation is when metal reacts with oxygen in the air to produce metal oxides. When exposed to air, the metal loses electrons and changes different colors. Due to this, the metal has lost electrons to oxygen, which means the metal has been oxidized. This is how the penny turned a different color. The penny was combined chemically (the vinegar) with oxygen, which made it become oxidized. Penny A stayed the same because the penny was not being affected by anything that was a chemical or an acid, like vinegar. Thus, the penny that was in water was not oxidized and did not turn a green color. Therefore, the reason that Penny B was affected differently than penny A, was becasue penny B was affected by oxidation and was chemically changed, while penny A was …show more content…

The first error that might have occurred was that the water and vinegar might have been covering the entire penny and the penny might not have been exposed to enough air. If the penny was not exposed to enough air, then the penny could have reacted differently toward the experiment. The paper towels were dry towards the end of the experiment and more water and vinegar was not added to the cups. This could have affected the way the penny was affected. With more water and vinegar, the pennies may have gotten more green or may have has a stronger reaction. At the end of the experiment, the pennies were taken out of the cups and placed a new paper towel. The towel was then labeled with sharpies and left to sit there for a day. The different chemicals in the sharpies could have affected the way the penny reacted. Since the sharpie marker was so close to the pennies, they could have easily been affected. Another experiment that people may want to do next is to the same experiment, but with different liquids. Instead of the vinegar being white vinegar, maybe one could try the experiment with a different type of vinegar, like apple cider vinegar. Apple cider vinegar has different ingredients and could be affected differently and have very different results. To conclude, there were many possible errors during this experiment and many scientific reasons on why the pennies reacted the way they

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