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.