Mars soil experiment part 2 By Abbie M, Evie, Eva and Khushi

Does it let water pass through quickly? Sample A didn’t let water through as quickly as sample B and sample C because sample A took 3 minutes 51 seconds but Sample B only took 49 seconds. Sample C took 51 seconds. Sample B was the fastest of all because the soil wasn’t very thick. We used 20ml of water to see which one of them let the water pass through the quickest and timed it with a timer to get accurate measurements.

Contains salt Sample A’s water contained salt and we found this out by boiling it over a tea light candle and watched it boil. We also did this with sample B and C. Sample B contained salt but sample C didn’t. Sample A boiled very nicely over the tea light candle but sample B stated to burn but didn’t have as much salt in and sample C burned a lot and didn’t have any salt in.

Was it acidic? Sample A wasn’t acidic because the blue litmus paper didn’t turn pink. Sample B wasn’t acidic because the blue litmus paper didn’t turn pink. Sample C wasn’t acidic because again the blue litmus paper didn’t turn pink. None of them were acidic and we knew this because the blue litmus paper didn’t turn pink. We figured this out by dipping the blue litmus paper into the water quickly and pulled it straight back out again.

Conclusion We found out that sample B was most like Mars soil because the water went through the fastest. It also feels like talc and flour. It contains a range of different sized particles and it also contained salt but didn’t contain acid. If we did this experiment again we would use more soil in and more water and compare it to this one to check if we got the same result.