Assessment Instructions

What do you need to do for this assessment?  

This assessment is in two parts.

· Part 1 – Practical Skills

· Part 2 – Experiment and laboratory report

Part 1 Task:

You must complete two activities on the VLE

- A hazard identification video task

- A Health& Safety quiz

Part 2 Task:

This assessment is to test your ability to carry out an experiment, interpret the results and write a laboratory report. You are required to plan and carry out a virtual experiment. You should record your results and then write a lab report for your tutor, detailing your methods, results, discussions and conclusions. You must describe any safety precautions that would be taken in a physical lab and list all steps taken to ensure a fair test.

Experiment aim:  To determine the concentration of an unknown solution of hydrochloric acid.

Titrations are commonly used in many types of analytic investigations. The equivalence point of an acid-base titration can be determined from the colour change of a chemical indicator. The experiment will use phenolphthalein to determine the equivalence point.

You will complete a virtual experiment to obtain the results you require to complete the lab report. The virtual lab will be on the FC304 Chemistry VLE page.

Guidance:

For this assessment you should make use of the following formative activities that you have already completed. These activities have been designed to support this summative assessment:

· homework task

· in-class group activity

Please note:

This is an individual assessment so you should not work with any other student.

Your tutor will also ask for a draft copy of your report and provide written feedback.  

Before you submit this assessment, you will have an opportunity to receive feedback from your peers (other students in the class).  Your tutor will arrange a time for you to share and discuss your progress with your classmates.  You do not have to act on their feedback, but you may find it useful to enhance your final submission.

Structure:

Part 1: Practical skills

- A hazard identification video task. You will watch a video of a person working in a lab on the VLE. You will identify the hazards and describe these on a hazard table that you will attach as an appendix to your lab report.

- A Health & Safety quiz. You will complete a VLE quiz to demonstrate your knowledge of basic health and safety in a lab (30 minutes).

Part 2: Lab report

Your lab report should contain the following sections: 

· Introduction. You should give a brief overview of the main theories behind the experiment.  What is the background to this experiment? 

· Aim. Clearly state the aim of the experiment – what are you trying to determine? 

· Materials and methods. You should explain how the experiment was carried out. You should give enough detail so that another person can repeat the experiment in the same way you did. 

· Results. You must include all your results. Results tables should be clearly labelled. All measurements must include units. If graphs are required, they should be an appropriate size and clearly labelled. 

· Discussion. You need to explain what your results mean. You should link your results to relevant theories and explain how they fit together. You must use in-text citations where appropriate. Any unexpected results should be explained. 

· Conclusion. State what has been learned from this experiment. Have you met the aim of the experiment? 

· Errors. What may have affected your results? This section should include errors such as systematic, parallax and human errors – ones that cannot be avoided. 

· References. You should list all sources used. 

Theory and/or task resources required for the assessment:

You should refer to the appropriate chapters in the key texts as well as the lecture materials for the topic relevant to your experiment. You should also find relevant primary sources online using the online resources provided by your host university. 

Referencing style:

You should refer to a minimum of 5 relevant sources for your report.  Minimum 2 sources should be printed texts.  You must include a Harvard style reference list at the end of your report.  

Expected word count:

Your overall word count should be 1500-2000 words, excluding references. 

In each section you should include around the following number of words: 

· Introduction & Aim 300-500 words 

· Materials and methods 300 words 

· Results 200 words 

· Discussion 500-600 words 

· Conclusion & Errors 200 words 

Learning Outcomes Assessed:

· Apply good laboratory practice to the conduct of experiments, and to measure, record and interpret outcomes accurately using a lab report format 

Submission Requirements:

You must include the following paragraph on your title page:

I confirm that this assignment is my own work.  

Where I have referred to academic sources, I have provided in-text citations and included the sources in the final reference list.

You must type your assessment in Arial font 11, with single spacing.

You must submit the assessment electronically via the VLE module page.  Please ensure you submit it via Turnitin.

Assessments submitted after the submission deadline may incur penalties or may not be accepted.

How will this assessment be marked?

Lab Report – (80% of assessment score) 

Experimental Procedure and Plan of experiment (10%) 

We will be looking for:

· Clearly defined aim of experiment

· Appropriate theoretical context

· Hypothesis with reasons

· Clear explanation of method

· Complete list of all materials required and consideration of safety procedures

· A clear labelled diagram showing the equipment set-up

· Methodical practical skills (instructions followed correctly)

Results (15%) 

We will be looking for:

· Good quality results with units.

· Recognition of outliers, repeat measurements to reduce uncertainty

· Equations, structural formulae.

· Correct mathematical manipulation in calculations, including units.

· Units on graph axes and/or table headings.

· Results quoted to correct accuracy and precision

Uncertainty & Errors (10%)

We will be looking for:

· Identification of errors and discrepancies

· Analysis of impact on results

Discussion and Conclusion (30%) 

This will mainly be found in the Introduction, Discussion and Conclusion sections.

We will be looking for:

· Clear explanation of the science underlying your observations.

· Interpretation of calculations and graphs.

· Explanations of all results.

· Well explained links between results and appropriate theories theory.

· Confirmation (or otherwise) of hypothesis and/or aims

Overall structure and quality of presentation (10%) 

We will be looking for:

· Attractive, clear layout with title page, headings, sub-headings

· Neat, well laid-out tables with column headings.

· Neat graphs with titles, labelled axes and well-spaced, numbered scales.

· Correctly formatted chemical and mathematical equations

· Calculations that are well laid out and easy to follow.

· References correctly formatted and attributed

· Correct use of academic English

Academic integrity (5%)

· Information from sources is appropriately paraphrased/summarised rather than relying on quotes

· Any direct and indirect quotations are clearly marked and acknowledged with correct citations

· References match the citations and are correctly formatted    

· Data/facts presented are genuine and accurate

Practical Skills – (20% of assessment score) 

Hazard identification video task – (10%)

Health & Safety VLE quiz – (10%)

The overall mark will be a percentage (0-100%).

How will you get feedback?

Your tutor will mark the assessment and provide you with a written feedback sheet.  You can use this feedback to guide your further learning on the module.