Removing Salt from Salt Water Experiment

This past weekend my two daughters and I set out to complete several different science experiments.  I'll post all of them here eventually, but I'll start with our experiment to remove salt from salt water.  We first took a cup of water and mixed it with 4 tablespoons of table salt.  We then tasted the water to confirm that it was salty.  It was so salty that we gagged on it.  To remove the salt from the salt water we placed the pot on the stove and began to boil the water.

We wanted to capture some of the boiled off water.  Next time you boil a pot of water, take a close look at the lid.  Once the water vapor hits the lid, some of it will condense back into water droplets on the lid.  In our experiment, only the water boils away, leaving the salt behind in the pot.  To collect the boiled water, we tilted the lid toward another bowl.  The condense water on the lid slowly dripped into the bowl.  We continued to boil the water until it was completely boiled off.  What was left was very cool!

Salt!  What you see in this picture is the 4 tablespoons of salt we mixed in the cup of water.  It's all left in the pot!  Below is the condensed water that dripped into our bowl.

Look closely.  It's there.  The final test was to taste this water.  Does it taste salty or does it taste like fresh water.  It should taste like fresh water.  My daughters and I each had a taste, and sure enough, regular, fresh water.  

This was a cool experiment that only took 15 minutes to complete.  I definitely recommend it if your kids need something to do on a weekend.