Vanessa Barahona Barahona1

Mrs. Stotts

Period: 3 Chemistry

October 22, 2015

Whodunit Lab Write Up

Purpose:

In this lab our group was expected to find a suspect in a crime scene involved with

various metallic weapons of choice. As a group we were expected to take unknown samples

swept up from the floor of the crime scene to match up to the suspected victims with their found

weapons in their cars. the suspects being Mrs. Marinara with a leaded crystal tray, Mr. Pesto with

a zinc plated army knife, Mr. Alfredo with steel snow tire chains and a shovel, and Ms. Stromboli

with aluminum bats. We analyzed the clues, read the statements, surveyed the crime scene, and

tested the samples to find the criminal.

Hypothesis:

In the case involving Filet Minions murder I believe that Mrs. Marinara is the leading

suspect for the case due to the fact that her alibi was weak and her reasonings for the leaded tray

being in her trunk of her vehicle were unreasonable. She was the first to the crime scene and

since none of Filet Minions friends actually liked him it is safe to say that Mrs. Marinara is the

murderer. She would have had plenty of time to murder Filet before the other three guests were

to come to the housewarming party and she has a motive for wanted Mr. Minion dead due to his

excess amounts of money

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being given in his will to his four closest friends. If we find lead samples found in the swept up

sample from the crime scene we will know for certain that Mrs. Marinara is the murderer.

Materials:

In this lab we used a triple balance beam, a cup, a funnel, a graduated cylinder, a magnet,

water, steel sample, aluminum sample, lead sample, zinc sample, filter paper, and a sample of the

sweepings from the crime scene.

Procedure:

1. Sweep up sample from crime scene and gather into a cup

2. Grab a triple balance beam, a funnel, a graduated cylinder, a magnet, a steel

sample, aluminum sample, lead, zinc sample, filter paper, and water
3. Taking the cup with the unknown sample place the magnet into the cup collecting

the metal shavings

4. Place metal shavings onto filter paper
5. Take densities of metals by taking the graduated cylinder and filling it to the 20ml

mark
6. Weigh the first metal sample on the triple balance beam finding the mass
7. Place the metal into the graduated cylinder
8. Subtract the new water level from the original water level to find the density
9. Repeat the process from steps 5 through 8 to all 4 metals
10. Repeat the process from steps 5 through 8 on the unknown sample

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11. Compare values to see which metal matches with the corresponding unknown

Data/Results:

For aluminum we calculated that the mass was 11 grams and the volume was four making

the density of the metal 2.75 grams. For zinc we weighed the metal at 5.5 grams with the volume

of 4 making the density 1.375. For lead we found the grams which was 5.7 we then divided that
by the volume which was 2 and this resulted in a density of 2.85. Steel resulted in a density of

8.34 grams milliliters. After finding the knows we discovered that the unknown had the same

density as the steel making the killer Mr. Alfredo.

Analysis:

a). Why did you decide to do the tests you did?

I decided to run the magnetic test to see if the unknown was magnetic which eliminated two of the metals

zinc and aluminum. Afterwards we tested the densities to determine which density matched the unknown

finding it to be the same material as the steel chains and the shovel in Mr. Alfredos trunk.

b). Were your test choices useful or would you have changed them? Explain why or why not they were

useful and what you would have done differently?

I thought the test choices I used were effective and I wouldnt change them because they got me the

results I needed in the least amount of time and the least amount of tests. The magnetic and the density

test narrowed down the metals so I could find the victim effectively.

c).What sources of error occurred that could invalidate your data and let the killer go free? Do you feel

these are significant enough to invalidate your conclusion? Why or why not?

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During the process there were a lot of people working with different processes in order to dwindle down

the four metals into one answer we could have messed up the weighing or the volumes during the process

which could invalidate data however i believe we did everything precisely making the suspect Mr.

Alfredo the killer.

Conclusion:

My hypothesis of the killer being Ms. Marinara was wrong based on the fact that although lead is weakly

magnetic it did not match the densities of the unknown samples swept up from the crime scene of Filet
Minions new house. The material in the unknown substance was magnetic and had a density of 8.34g/ml

which was equivalent to the known steel density. During the experiment we may have had an error in the

mathematical processes in finding the density which would result in inaccurate data and if i could repeat

the experiment I would make sure one person was doing the math behind the experiment while the others

accurately collect the data and put it into a table.