Aluminum Foil Lab

During our Aluminum Foil Lab, we had to determine the thickness of a piece of aluminum foil using only a ruler, a scale, and a calculator. The density was given to us but we had to find the mass of the foil along with the length and width of the foil in order to calculate an accurate thickness (aka height).

My partner and I started by weighing the piece of foil on the scale to find out its mass and then measured its' length and width by using the ruler. We then used the calculator to multiply the length by the width but kept the height as h. After we found out what the volume would be excluding the height, we set up an equation to figure out what the height would be. We know that volume=density/mass, so my partner and I plugged in the corresponding numbers and figured out what the height of the piece of foil would be. After, we had to convert our answer from centimeters to millimeters so we set up a proportion using the conversion factor 10 millimeters in 1 centimeter to figure out what the thickness of the piece of foil would be in millimeters.

Here is a picture of our calculations and answers:

I was surprised that we were able to calculate the thickness of a piece of foil with only few equations that I could understand as a newbie in the chemistry world. It was a little challenging to keep track of which equations I needed for each new calculation and the conversion. Overall, it was a fun activity and I understand the calculations that I did and how I did them.