Preparation for Group Activity 1

Preparation for Group Activity 1

For the group activity on Friday (1/27), each person should spend 1-2 hours to find relevant information about the chemical element assigned to your group. You can see your group and your assigned element on the course web page ("group list" link), but make-ups of GA1 will involve different elements. Every member of your group will also be finding information, so your whole group should have a good collective set of information.

You must bring at least 2 pages of materials (photocopies, printouts) in to class that you have found from searching web or library; you will turn it in with your name on it as part of the credit you will earn for the activity.

If you do web search, you may find that search "hits" that have a web address (URL) that ends in ".edu" or ".gov" may provide information that is more helpful to you.

The following is a good web site, but tends to be centered more on US resources than international: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/

especially the "Commodity" link under "Statistics and Information". Under the "commodity" link there may be useful information in the "Minerals yearbook" and "Mineral commodity summaries" links.

Besides the atomic structure of your element, other questions your group will be attempting to answer are related to

(a) the abundance of your element in the Earth,

(b) what minerals containing your element are mined,

(d) the worldwide current and past production (amount and main countries) of your element,

(e) the current/past prices of your element on the world market,

(f) the primary uses of your element in today's society,

(g) the environmental problems associated with mining of the minerals (like air, water pollution and health of miners and processors) and

(h) the environmental problems associated with the element in general (like health of people and ecosystems in modern applications or disposal), etc.

Pages 256-258 of Mackenzie text may help with some of the questions.