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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1999  > November  >
Chemistry Everyday for Everyone
Piltdown Man: Combining the Instruction of Scientific Ethics and Qualitative Analysis

John B. Vincent
Department of Chemistry, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0336

Cover
November 1999
Vol. 76 No. 11
p. 1501

Abstract
In combination with lectures on scientific method and the problems of scientific misconduct in a freshman chemistry course at The University of Alabama, a laboratory experiment was developed to allow students to feel some of the sense of scientific discovery associated with the exposure of the Piltdown Man fraud. This is accomplished by modifying a commonly performed freshman chemistry laboratory experiment, qualitative analysis of group III metal ions. Pieces of chalk are treated with chromium, manganese, and iron to simulate the treatment used to forge the Piltdown "fossils"; students can use techniques in qualitative analysis schemes for the group III ions to determine whether the samples are "forgeries" and if so which metal ion(s) were used.
More Information
*  Citation
Vincent, John B. J. Chem. Educ. 1999 76 1501.
*  Keywords
Laboratory Instruction; History / Philosophy; Teaching / Learning Aids; Ethics
*  History
Created:
Last Updated:
October 12, 1999
June 23, 2005
  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1999 > November > Page 1501



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