Copper in Silver Nitrate Demonstration

If you put copper metal in a silver nitrate solution, the solution becomes blue and you get silver metal. Ag⁺ is becoming Ag and Cu is becoming Cu⁺⁺. The students see both oxidation and reduction happening - and happening at the same time. If you do it close to Christmas you can use the copper filament to make a Christmas tree, and then you get a nice silver on the Christmas tree. They know that it was a colourless ion solution, but then they can see silver on the Christmas tree. So they can easily see the reduction. They can also see the oxidation because the copper ions turn the solution blue. It gets the point across and is something that they will remember.

Link to YouTube Video: The Silver Christmas Tree

Link to YouTube Video: Silver Production From Silver Nitrate