2.1.2 The OpenScience Laboratory

As a science student at a campus university, you might expect to carry out experiments in a physical laboratory, but at an online university, you can study in a virtual laboratory wherever you are.

The OpenScience Laboratory (OSL) is an initiative between The Open University and the Wolfson Foundation to enable students to experience practical science in an accessible way. It has been incorporated into some of the science courses which students at The Open University study. To get a sense of what it might be like to study science online, you will now conduct a short flame test experiment by burning a number of metallic salts in a Bunsen burner flame. You do not need to have any knowledge of science to do this. To access this activity, you will need a free OU online account.

You are only expected to spend 20 minutes on the first part of this experiment, which involves identifying the colour of flames produced by burning the metallic salts from Tray 1 (Figure 3). If you have more time, you can conduct the whole experiment, which takes approximately one hour.

Instructions

• sign up for the OpenScience Laboratory [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]
• visit the Flame test II experiment
• follow the instructions on screen – make sure you watch the short videos explaining how to carry out the experiment.

Note down the colour of the flame produced by introducing the following metallic salts from Tray 1 (Figure 3).

Figure 1 Metallic salts

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Figure 3 shows two rows of three circles. The circles are labelled ‘Potassium Chloride’, ‘Strontium Nitrate’, ‘Lithium Bromide’, ‘Calcium Chloride’, ‘Copper Nitrate’ and ‘Sodium Chloride’.

Figure 1 Metallic salts