GEO 306 Lab 1
Chemical Bonds; Intro to Mineralogy
To download an electronic copy of this lab (Adobe PDF File), Click Here. This lab is designed to give the student an introduction to the discipline of Mineralogy from a few different perspectives. The first emphasis of this exercise is a more classical approach; hand sample identification. Here, the students must use the diagnostic properties of the unknown minerals they are given to determine what they are. The next portion of the lab is to relate the chemical formulae with the mineral names, which can be done simply by looking them up in the course textbook. The next step in the lab relates the mineral's chemical formula to the types of chemical bonds most commonly exhibited in the mineral. Once all of these things have been determined, the students then attempt to match each mineral with its appropriate molecular structure model.
Once all of this has been done, a comprehensive set of questions is asked about each structural model relating specifically to the model, the mineral, its chemistry, and it's physical properties. This lab was specifically designed to require not only previous personal experience on the part of the student, but also some background knowledge of chemistry. It was also designed to require the student to learn to use the textbook as a valuable reference resource, and whatever holes were still remaining, the TA's were there to help the students fill. All in all, this was a challenging lab, but it gave the students a good introduction to Mineralogy, as well as a good idea of the types of things to expect in the future.
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