Stoichoimetry Helpful Links

Links

Links:

1. ChemTeam- Breaks down what stoichoimetry is and gives practice problems with answers
2. Khan Academy- As always, I have to include Khan Academy. They do agreat job of explaining things
3. Chem4Kids- Explains stoichoimetry like you are a child
4. UCDavis ChemWiki- Takes you step by step with a lengthy explanation on each step
5. Learn Chemistry- Takes you all the way back to the basics of stoichoimetry to the harder aspects of stoichoimetry.
6. Stoichoimetry- Another view on how to go through problems

Stoichoimetry Week 1 Quiz

: )

I took the quiz. I didn't expect to get the grade I did. I personally thought I bombed it. Quite the opposite actually, I got 100%. When I walked into the test I accepted failure, I thought I was just plugging in numbers and getting random answers. I guess I had the process down and I didn't even know it. I will still continue to study my hardest all the way up to the test, so I'm sure I know what I'm doing. Despite my god grade on the quiz I see alot of practice problems in my future.

Copper (II) Chloride and Iron Lab Day 2

Today we filtered out the fluid leftover. That left the copper. We then proceeded to mix in hydrogen chloride to help clean out the remaining copper. I was surprised to see how much copper was there after 24 hours. We left the copper out to dry until Tuesday when we will weigh the copper. We applied what we have learned all this time in the unit stoichiometry. We calculated the theoretical mass and on Tuesday we will divide the actual by the theoretical to get the percent yield.

Left over copper

Copper(II) Chloride and Iron Lab Day 1

After placing nail in solution

This lab was a great lab to show chemical reactions and their precipitate. I was fascinated by how fast the copper clung to the nail. We left to wash our hands and came back and the nail was covered by a thick layer of copper. The objective of the lab was to determine the charge of iron. Whether it was Iron 2+ or Iron 3+. In a few days we will be able to determine this based on our percent yield calculations.

Another angle of initial placement

Redox Lab

I found the lab to be a very fun lab and I learned alot. The practice was good preparation for the test. We got some strong reactions from calcium. Zinc, Lead, and copper didn't do much, but the still somewhat reacted. I will continue to study for the test coming up and I have high hopes for it!

Calcium

Links That I Found Helpful

Links

1. Chemistry Tutor- Goes over basics
2. Oxidation-Reduction Reaction- Defines everything
3. Redox Reactions- organizes redox reactions
4. Kahn Academy- Explains things really good
5. About.com- different redox reactions
6. Oxidizing and Reducing agents- Explains like I'm 2

Redox Reactions

Reactions

I found the redox reactions to be strangely easy. That never happens. That means that the test will probably be next to impossible. Reduction oxidation reactions happen at the same time. Metals tend to donate to non-metals. I will need to memorize the oxidation rules. The other part of this chapter was the acid-base reactions. Other than that there is not much else.

Chemical Reaction Quiz

I took the chemical reactions quiz. Despite the hours of studying I did I still found it to be somewhat difficult. The balancing ones were beyond what we discussed in class. I guess I wasn't ready for everything. The net ionic ones were somewhat easy. Probably because that's what I thought the test was gonna be over. Solubility rules, not everything else. I guess my reflects that. I would like to retake it, but I guess that's out of the question. I know one things for sure, I will be ready for the unit test.

Eh

Solubility Lab

Yesterday in class we performed the solubility lab. To be 100% honest, I felt the lab was a little disappointing. All we did was mix 10 droplets of varying chemicals into a tray and see if there was a chemical change. It just reconfirmed the predictions I had made, so it was pretty much a waste. It was also very time consuming having to refill each dropper, and you spent more time cleaning than anything else. I mean, maybe I learned through practice and experience, but I can't say I found it enjoyable.

Mixed chemicals

Mrs. Frankenburg is awesome

SLAP SLAP SLAP, CLAP CLAP CLAP

She did a great thing today. She postponed the lesson! I now feel amazing! This gives me an opportunity to work on my blog. I was a bit worried about this lesson, but she got rid of those worries and helped me out.

Links That I Found Helpful

Useful Links

1. Video explaining percent composition and empirical formulas
2. Explains empirical formulas good
3. Explains mole conversions
4. Explains conversions like you're a toddler
5. Explains the combustion problems
6. Explains percent composition

Chemical Composition Unit Test

When your test grade finally hits you

Today I took the unit test. I heard from previous hours it was hard, but I frankly found it to be only somewhat challenging. The only problem with that test was that it was very time consuming. As soon as I got my test I took off and finished the test in no time. Only on 1 I couldn't figure it out until I came back to it and re-read it and figured it out. Although there was somethings on the unit test we didn't even cover I think I was still able to figure it out using a different equation. Overall I can see how people had trouble with it because it was very troublesome.

Chloride Lab

Chloride

We mixed hydrochloric acid with zinc and measured the results. We calculated the ratio of the 2 element. We drove off the chlorine gas from the mixture with a heat plate. That left zinc chloride behind. I found the lab to pretty easy and entertaining except for the fact that the chlorine gas smelled terrible. The pre-lab I didn't expect to do good on and I apparently pulled through and passed it. This just shows how much I am going to have to study for the test over chemical composition.

Before Heating

After Heating

Hydrate Lab

Lab

We took a hydrate compound and drove the water off by heating it with a Bunsen burner. The lab itself was pretty easy and I understood the purpose and the lesson of it. The only thing I found to be a little difficult was the pre-lab. I got the procedure question so I found it to be easy. I calculated the math question for the practice and got the correct answer, but I didn't fully understand every single step which is what I found tricky. Overall the lab/pre-lab were pretty easy, but I feel like the test will be much more complicated. I see quite a bit of studying in my future.

Driving off water & hydrated crystal

Thoughts About The Pre-test

Question Mark

I don't think I've ever had to take a test where I knew absolutely nothing. This was a first. I knew the unit mole and that's it, the rest was completely blank. I tried on the first 5-10 questions, but after that I knew there was no point, when I would try I could never get anything close to the options. I would always get calculations that were just way far off from the numbers. I saw everyone else finishing and so I thought I was getting caught behind so maybe I need to pick things up, but when I looked closer they were just filling in random bubbles because I can only assume they were in the same situation as me. I'm sure there were some people that were familiar with the content. I now know I have my fair share of studying to do this unit!

Some Links That I Found Useful During This Unit

1. Math Skills- Dimensional Analysis
2. Khan Academy
3. Bozeman Science
4. Fun With Dimensional Analysis
5. Study.com
6. Introduction To Dimensional Analysis

Project Final Thoughts

Whack-A-Mole

Coffee Cake

I finished my recipe conversion project and found it to be much easier than I thought. I thought it was going to take me several hours of work, but it took me a mere hour even from all the typing. Once I finished the unit conversions I had to bake one of the recipes. I picked my all time favorite Coffee Cake. No it doesn't taste like coffee. Might I say, I thought it came out quite well. When I brought it into my 6th and 7th hours I couldn't keep people from eating it. I even gave some to my teachers! It was the most fun I've had on a project in a long time.

Fridays thoughts

Feast!

On Friday we brought in then food we baked. I personally wasn't sure how my food was going to come out because my mom normally bakes it but she wasn't home, so it was a struggle to say the least. Overall my food came out great as did everyone else's. I did notice how overwhelmed I was with chocolate desserts and cookies. I've had enough chocolate for awhile. I tried to make my way around trying everything, but I got full half way around the classroom. Hopefully we have a third Friday in a row where we eat food!

Thoughts on Aspirin Lab Day 2

My lab partner and I continued our lab today. We proceeded to take the contents of our mixture and clean out and filter away to get the crystals left behind otherwise known as aspirin. We weighed the mixture and left out to dry. The lab calmed down today and was more relaxed. I had a better idea of what we were doing and was more on it. We produced a pretty good amount of aspirin compared to the other groups, but there was one group with mounds of aspirin though. Overall we did pretty good in this lab.

Adding filter paper to Buchner funnel

Before adding the mixture to the filter

Final Product!

Thoughts on Aspirin Lab Day 1

We took the pre-lab and I found it to be quite easy. My entire class that took the quiz on day 1 passed. My lab partner, Claire Frank, and I began our lab by collecting the ingredients and heating the necessary ingredients together and leaving it to sit for 24 hours. The lab was frantic and everyone was moving all different directions, so focusing was not too terribly difficult, but was still hard. We still managed to finish with a little time to spare. What I did find a little aggravating was how far off we were told to sway from the directions and there was some things that weren't in the lab directions.

Boiling the water

Heating the mixture using boiled water

Filter tracing

weight of filter cutout

Thoughts On The Forensic Archeology Lab

Tiny Square Pieces of Paper

Today we worked on the Forensic Archeology lab. It was tedious to say the least. My partner and I began by drawinga 24 by 24 square on a piece of paper and cutting out 576 boxes. I didn't exactly "enjoy" that part. After we were done cutting out the boxes we then put them in a cup and dumped them out. We separated the boxes with color facing upward and the boxes that are blank. Then counted them. Then restarted the process with the blank ones. Until we finished the required amount of trials. I know the point of the lab was to demonstrate halve lives, but there must be some other way to visualize the half life process. Despite all this I still learned quite a bit. :D

Web Resources for Atomic Structure and Radioactivity

6 Links that helped me:
Stellar-Database- This link basically gave me my whole Elements In The Stars project and tied up anything I couldn't find on a star.
BBC- Although this website is mainly to explain how Nuclear Bombs work, it does highlight and explain some points we are working on in our unit.
Introduction to Atomic Physics- Yes, this link will take you to a physics website, but it covers our entire unit in detail. In my opinion, one of my favorite websites for this topic.
Atomic Structure and Radioactivity- It's like the title says. This website is best for when your low on time and need a site that divides the information into a table of contents to conserve time.
BBC #2- This site does a complete run-through of the subject and offers links that you can click on if you need more information.
A Simple View of Atomic Structure- This site offers what the title says, "A Simple View of  Atomic Structure". It runs through the sections of the modern atomic theory and hits on the main points.

Beanium Lab

Beans

On Wednesday we conducted the beanium lab. I know I should have not expected anything more but I, for some strange reason, expected beanium to be some hybrid rare compound. As you probably know, my expectations were shattered when I saw beans on the lab write-up. When I conducted the lab I noticed that my calculation skills were refined and I thought that it helped a lot. Although I didn't like that the lab had to be turned in online because I find that writing things up by hand feels more natural. We found that the final average atomic mass was .304 grams per bean. All-in-all the lab refined my calculations and helped me practice.

Elements in the Stars Thoughts

After completing the Elements in the stars project  (although I still have things to tie up, research is complete) I now know the purpose of the research. Before I questioned the purpose and I felt that this project was a waste of time. The purpose of the research is to focus on the molecules and understand how stars are made of atoms and molecules just as how earth is made up of molecules. We test molecules and atoms here on earth because we can't just "grab" a piece of star to test. We can determine the chemical abundances of stars by spectroscopy - which is basically passing light through a prism or something similar to break it down into its constituent colors. Then by looking at what colors are missing (absorption lines) we can determine both temperature and composition. Temperature is actually the biggest determinant of what absorption lines are present - but we can disentangle temperature and use the strength of absorption lines or determine compositions.

Fraunhofer lines

Thoughts about the Notes for 9/21/15 about Isotopes

Alpha Decay

Today was actually one of the first days I don't need to go home and study the subject we learned in class about. I fully understood the lesson about isotopes. Learning this actually tied up a lesson we learned about in the past about the different Carbons like Carbon-13. When asked questions about the notes I struggled for a moment, but then I looked back in my notes and found that wasn't as hard as I made it out to be. I still will study for a long time tonight and tomorrow night for the quiz. I will also have to look back on our Nomenclature unit and review it for a little because I was just made aware that our past lessons will be on the test. Today I understood everything for the most part, tied up a connection from the past, and was made aware of a section of the test.

Thoughts about the notes and our Lab

Circle with non-hidden line pattern

When we took the notes I was familiar with the material. I remember several things like atomic radiation,half life, and things like that. But the other things that were mentioned I hadn't the slightest clue what was going on. In regards to the lab, I questioned the objective. In regards to the lab itself my partner and I did well in identifying the hidden patterns by shaking the container and other methods like that.

Thoughts about Pre-Test for Atomic Struture and Radioactivity Unit

Overall I thought I did ok. When it came to some of the test I was completely lost and didn't know a thing, but the rest of the test specifically the last 13 questions I thought I did fairly well because of prior knowledge. I came to an understanding of some things just by taking the pre-test. I was re-familiarized with several things that I remembered back in physical science. If you look at the percentage of what I got right, it won't look good, but if you really think about it, for a pre-test that's not that bad. In conclusion, my pre-test thoughts were that I was lost on some of it, knew some of the material, and remembered some from physical science.

Final thoughts about Nomenclature

Type I, II, III binary compounds

Some final thoughts I have on Nomenclature are how much scientists rely on Nomenclature. If you really think about it imagine how hard it would be to name compounds and balance ionic bonds if they had not developed a system.

First thing I learned in Nomenclature

Type 1 Binary Compounds

The very first thing I learned in Nomenclature was how to name type 1 binary compounds. I learned that ions are formed into compounds. The charges on these ions are what decides how many atoms are in each bond.

Introduction

About me....
I am a junior at Francis Howell High School. I have been a soccer player since I was 3. I love science and dream of becoming a orthopedic doctor when I grow up. That is why this year in school I tripled up in science. I want to go to Saint Louis University and play soccer there. I volunteer/shadow at the hospital often.