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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 2002  > April  >
In the Classroom
Applications and Analogies
Fingerprinting: Commercial Products and Elements
DeeDee Allen and Maria T. Oliver-Hoyo
Department of Chemistry, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8204
Cover
April 2002
Vol. 79 No. 4
p. 459
Abstract
Correlation between commercial bar codes and element emission spectra gives rise to an activity that relates the familiarity of everyday things to a chemical concept. The analogy between bar codes found in everyday items and absorption-emission spectra emerges from the fact that both contain information in the form of lines and those lines identify a specific product or element. Bar codes are most commonly read by computerized scanners, which obtain a reflectance pattern from the line widths of a bar code. Emission spectra are similar to these reflectance patterns. In the activity entitled "Fingerprinting", students interpret bar code patterns and use the properties of bar code symbols to identify the properties of emission spectra.
Supplement

A detailed instructional plan of the activity and further discussion is available.

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*  Citation
 Allen, DeeDee; Oliver-Hoyo, Maria T. J. Chem. Educ. 2002 79 459.
*  Keywords
 Atomic Spectroscopy; General Chemistry; Introductory / High School Chemistry; Teaching / Learning Aids
*  History
 Created:
Last Updated:		 March 1, 2002
March 16, 2005
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