Chemical analysis for a high school lab? - (Dec/14/2012 )

Hi!

I wanted to do some "citizen science" combining a pretty well equiped lab and some pretty motivated high school students.

But what to do?

...we have reagents but little apparatus for analytical chemistry?

Is there a way to detect caffeine withouth a HPLC? Paper chromatography?

Can we measure water quality?

Food contents?


What would you do?

you can use paper or thin layer chromatography to separate pigments from acetone extracts of plant leaves.

how well equipped is the lab? what instrumentation? supplies? chemicals? silica and glass plates or slides (you can pour your own tlc plates like we did when i was in school)?