Chemistry week 10

This week in chemistry, we focused on learning about energy and heat. 

On Monday we had to do an experiment to figure out which would change the temperature of 500 mL of ice water more, 10 mL of 50 degrees Celsius or 100 mL of 25 degrees Celsius. I predicted that the 10 mL would heat up the water more but I was wrong. The 100 mL changed the temperature of the water by 1.5 degrees Celsius and the 10 mL of water didn't even change the temperature. This is because there was more energy added to the system. To help understand this concept, we watched a video. It explained that if you had a teacup full of $100 bills and a bucket full of $50, the bucket would have more money in it, which represents the energy. So even though the bills themselves are worth less, as a whole they have more energy than the teacup.

On Tuesday, we learned that the degree of hotness only depends on the speed whereas the quantity of hotness depends on mass and speed. The degree of hotness is the temperature and the quantity of hotness is heat. In previous science classes, we have been taught that energy is like Baskin' Robin's 31 flavors basically and that there is many different "flavors"  of energy. Mr Abud made a statement to help us understand this which was that if you scooped vanilla ice cream out of the container, it wouldn't turn into chocolate when you put it onto the cone. There is just ONE flavor of energy. It is just energy. Energy is energy is energy. Energy can be stored and transferred in different ways. So really, all energy is the same, and just stored different.

On Wednesday, we learned more about energy. Energy maintains its identity after being transferred, it doesn't change into a different type. Energy can be stored and it is substance like, but isn't a substance that you can touch. It can flow or transfer from one system to another. The different ways that energy can be stored are the following:

1. Thermal Energy (Eth): Energy stored by moving particles.

2. Phase Energy (Eph): Energy stored in the system due to the arrangement of particles that exert attractions on one another.

3.  Chemical Energy (Ech): Energy due to attractions within molecules.

On Thursday, we did an experiment to figure out how the temperature changed in a system based on the energy we added to it. we put a glass of ice on a hot plate and kept the temperature at a medium hot so that it would transfer from a solid to a liquid to a gas. We only made it to about 95 degrees Celsius but the general trend of the graph of the relation was that as we increased the energy, the temperature increased.

On Friday, Mr Abud wasn't there so we worked on a worksheet. I learned about what a triple point was, which was that it is a point where all three stages are present basically. Like the point where there was a little bit of ice, a little bit of water, and water vapor all in the system like it was on Thursday. At the end of class, we had a lockdown and we almost all died, but not really. 

Chemistry Week 8

This week in chemistry we learned about different units of temperature and did things with glowsticks.
On Monday we learned about the measurment of temperature called "Kelvin." -273.15 degrees Celcius is called absolute zero and is equal to 0 Kelvin. It is known as the absolute scale.
To convert celcius to kelvin, you add 273.15. To convert Celcius to Farenheidt, you multiply celcius by 2 and add 32.
Then, we focused on pressure. We compared 2 different 2 L bottles that both had a dropper in them and saw that when the cap on the bottle was screwed on, it was harder to move the dropper down than when it was unscrewed.
On Wednesday it was halloween so we did stuff with glowsticks. We found out that when you put glowsticks in hotter water, they glow brighter then when you put them in cold water.
On Thursday, we learned about pressure in the atmosphere and Mr. Abud assigned us a project to make a barometer over the weekend. A barometer measure the atmospheric pressure. We learned that we are the spongebob's of the air.
On Friday, we went to the computer lab and we took a group assessment.
Overall, this week was not too eventful but we learned a lot of important information.

Chemistry Week 7

This week in chemistry, we learned some knew formulas and came to a few consensuses.

First, we went back to discussing the experiment we did last week with the ethanol and the water. We figured out that ethanol requires less energy for its particles to expand because its less dense. 

After that, we came to a consensus that temperature is a measure of the energy of particles, measuring the speed of the particles (velocity). The average velocity (energy) of all of your particles is your temperature! 

On Tuesday, we focused on pressure. Pressure is equal to Force(newtons) divided by your Area (meters squared). We measure pressure in Pascals (Pa). According to this formula, if you decrease your area, your pressure increases and if you increase your force, the pressure will increase. Some factors that might affect the pressure of a gas would be the volume of the gas and the temperature. For example:

The pressure of the gas in A would be greater because the volume is less than in B.

On Wednesday, we used a pressure reader thingy and a syringe to find out what happens when you change the volume of the pressure source. We found out that as your volume increases, your pressure decreases. We also had to find the formula of what was going on. We used the inverse and found of that P(pressure)=k(constant)1/v(volume). The k or constant of proportionality equates 2 things. In this case, the constant was the TEMPERATURE. So, Pressure=Temperature/Volume 

On Thursday, we had to complete another lab to figure out if you keep the temperature and volume constant but change the number of particles in the volume, what would happen to the pressure. we figured out that if you increase the number of particles in the same amount of volume, your pressure increases. 

On Friday, Mr Abud wasn't in class so as a ChemTeam, we had to create a study guide for our quiz on Wednesday. 

Chemistry Week 6

Chemistry this week focused a lot on just plain learning rather than doing labs.
On Monday and part of Tuesday, we went over our summary of unit 1. Doing this helped me just basically sum everything up and understand everything we learned as a whole. Once all the groups were done presenting their whiteboards, we did a sort of lab with popcorn and dry ice.
The dry ice was super duper cool and looked like it was floating on the table. We used this to show how this substance went from a solid straight to a gas. We drew a particle diagram about this. My groups looked like this:

We used the arrows to simulate the particles moving away from the solid part of the dry ice. Then, we did a lab with the popcorn. Everybody closed their eyes and Mr Abud opened up a bag of popcorn. We had to draw a particle diagram for how the smell travelend and it looked the same as the dry ice diagram we drew.

On Wednesday, we got new seats... Then we did a mini lab about with these two test tubes containing water in one and ethonol in another. We put them both in a container that had water in it and put it on a hot plate. As the water heated up, the amount of ethonol and water in each tube rose in the little thing on the top. We learned that this is how a thermometer worked. After that, we watched a video that Mr Abud took of dropping food coloring into a container of cold water and one of warm water. The red food coloring that was dropped into the warm water spread faster than the blue food coloring in the cold water.This was because the water molecules of the hot water were moving around more because the water was closer to the gaseous state since it was heated up. Then, we watched one of these weird Eureka videos about what was saw going on. Basically we learned that matter NEVER stops moving, in every state.

On Thursday, we discussed all of these things  and took some notes. We compared solids, liquids, and gases and learned some new terms. Fluidity is how much a liquid flows (applies to liquids and gases). Rigidity is the rigedness or stifness of a solid. Viscosity is the resistance to flow, like Mr Abud's hair. In a solid, the particles are moving, but not very musch. They have a consistent structure called a lattice structure. It is the most dense state and it is rigid. In a liquid, the particles are moving more than in a solid. It is less dense than thes olid and has more fluidity. It doesn't have a lattice structure, instead it takes the shape of the container. It is also warmer than solids. In gas, the particles move the most. It is the last dense stat and has the most fluidity. It has no structure and is the warmest state. 

Lastly, we learned the Dance of the Little Lumps (Molecules). We can demonstrate them using "wooshies" in the following ways:

 



Week 5 Reflection

In chem this week, we basically focused on one thing. That thing was finding the density of a boy vs. a girl. On Monday and Tuesday, we planned out on how we were going to do this. 

At first, we thought that we should use the school pool to figure out the displacement of the water so that we could find the volume of the student so that that we could divide that into the mass. We realized that it would be too hard to figure out the displacement of a person in the pool because a human wouldn't really displace much water in a huge pool. Then we thought maybe we could use a dunk tank type of thing, but we didn't know where we could get one. We ended up figuring out that we could use a 44 gallon trash can. Thomas and Shannon volunteered to be the two students that we would find the density of. They told us their weight and we converted it into grams for the mass and then on Wednesday, we started the lab.
We put a kiddie pool underneath the trash can to catch the displaced water so we could measure it and then we filled up the trash can. Once it was filled to the top, Shannon got in and went all the way under and a bunch of water was displaced and spilled over the top. We then measured how much water fell into the kiddie pool. To do this, we filled up 2 L pop bottles so that it was easier to figure out, and then converted it into mL. Then to find out the density of Shannon, we divided her mass by her volume and it ended up as  .9951 g/mL. We did the same for Thomas and his was 1.047.
On Thursday, we talked about our results.These two densities were very similar and it was too broad of a generalization to say that boys have more density than girls. There were some factors that could have skewed our results, like the water that spilled out of the kiddie pool and the lack of accuracy used in measuring the amount of water. Also, the density of a human depends on their weight and volume, not on their gender. So if somebody, for example, is very fat but has less volume (shorter), they will have a greater density of somebody that is skinnier and has more volume (taller). None of this depends on your gender, just on the person in general. 

Chemistry Week 4

This week in chemistry, we really only got to have 4 days of learning because we had a half day. In these four days, we did a lot of different things.
     First, on Monday, we went to the computer lab and set up our active grade accounts and learned about Mr. Abud's grading method. I like the way that we can retake everything so our grade is actually based on how much we learn. I actually ended up reassessing 4 of the standards and improved all of my grades except for one of them. 
On Tuesday, we worked to figure out the density of a solid. In my case, my group figured out the density of a Starburst. In order to do this, we had to figure out the mass and volume of the Starburst. We found the mass by simply putting it on the scale and measuring what it was. To find the volume, we filled water in a graduated cylinder and measured the volume of the water. Then we dropped the Starburst in the water and figured out the volume of it by measuring the displacement of the water. we found the density to be about 1.5 g/mL. 


     On Wednesday, Mr Abud wasn't there and we had Mr Roberts. Although Mr. Roberts usually just completely takes us off track, we actually got all of our work done. My lab group worked together to figure out the thickness of aluminum foil. To do this, we had the use the density and the mass since we didn't know the "width" part of the volume. We figured out that the thickness of the foil was .0012 cm. 

     On Thursday, we had to figure out the density of a gas. We put water in a flask and put in alka seltzer after we attached the flask to a tub which as attached to a trough filled with water and a bell jar that had 295 mL of water in it. We then found out what the volume of the gas was by measuring the displacement that the alka-seltzer gas caused. The volume of the gas ended up being about .003 g/mL

     On Friday, we compared the densities of a solid, a liquid and a gas. The measurements were as follows:
Solid: 4.2 g/mL
Liquid: 1.0 g/mL
Gas: .003g/mL
This shows that a solid is about 1000 times as dense as a gas and a liquid is about 300 times more dense than a gas. 
After we figured this out, we started to figure out how particle diagrams could be different then how we've been doing them. The diffference in the number of particles could be different, the "togetherness" (how tightly packed it is) could be different, and the size of the particles could be different. We didn't get to figure out if all of these were right yet. I learned that particle diagrams don't just have to be a square, they should be represented with the shape of the thing that your are making a particle diagram of.  

Week 3

Chemistry was very intriguing this week. We learned some new concepts and we also did some labs.
On Monday, we were informed about the difference between precision and accuracy and how we should record data. Precision was how certain a measurement was limited on the measuring tool that you use. Accuracy differs in the fact that its the correctness of the measurment limited by the observer. Also, your answer cannot be more precise than your least precise measure. So if, for example, you had the measurements 2.2 , 2.6, and 4.5 and had to mulitply them together to get the volume, you couldn't go past one digit to the right of the decimal place. We were also informed about when zero is a significant digit in your measurement. Its not siginificant if its a place holder like this : .3600, but it is important it its at the end of a decimal like this : .000 It is also important to include the zero if its in what we call a "zero sandwich" like this: .303
On Tuesday, we learned a new phsyical property of matter besides mass and volume which is...density! Density is basically how the matter is distributed in a certain amount of space. It can be expressed in multiple ways such as pictures, graphs, algebraicly and linguisticly. Examples of these ways are shown below:

 

That day, we did a lab to find out the density of water. We by measuring the mass of the measuring tube and the mass of the liquid in the measuring tube and subtracting the measuring tube from it. We found out that the density of water was .98 g/mL. But, on Wednesday, we found out differently.

Wednesday, we did a lab to figure out the densities of different liquids: water, Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Fruit Punch, Dr. Pepper, Apple Juice, and oil. We figured out the following densities of each one and ranked them in order of least dense to most dense.

After we figured this out, on Thursday we realized from google that the actually density of water is 1.000 g/mL so there was some room for human error here. The reason why all of these liquids besides oil were so close to the density of water was because all of them are made up of mostly water. Since oil is a lot less dense than water is, it rises and does not mix with water. It floated on top of the water when we tried to mix them together.

Overall, this week I got to experience lots of new things about chemistry that I really didn't know before.

 



chemistry week two

I can already tell that chemistry is going to be one of my favorite classes this year. The "no-homework" style actually works very well for me because I am one who has a very busy schedule. The classroom environment is so chill and always puts me in a good mood. In one short week, we learn so much, but it doesn't even feel like a lot.
This week, we did a lot of different labs. All of these labs consisted of figuring out mass. The first lab that we did this week was with matches and and scale. We burned the matches on the scale and found out that when we burned them, they lost matter.
On Tuesday, my group did a lab that we had to pour sugar into water and figure out what happened to the mass. I predicted that the mass would be greater because you are putting the sugar into the water. I was correct I the sense that the mass went up, but I wasn't sure why. After other groups presented their experiments, we came to a consensus! it was that:
The mass of the system doesn't change unless matter is added or taken away from the system.
This is a model that we can use to predict future outcomes of experiments.
On the next day, we did another lab. we had to fill up a container full of water, measure the dimensions, and find the volume in cubic cm. Once we did that, we had to pour it into a measuring beaker and figure out how many mL it was and what the relationship of the two were. From this, we figured out that the measured volume=calculated volume, which meant that there is 1 cubic cm for very 1 mL! It was kinda cool that we figured this out on our own and I really enjoy doing labs.
On Friday we measure the volume and mass of these metal blocks. We tried to figure out if there was a relationship between the two. it turns out that there is not. The little red cube had more mass (g) than one of the bigger solve blocks. This proves that theres not as much matter in the longer one and not as much inertia, thus having more mass.
Overall, this week we learned a bunch of different things and made theories that can help us predict the outcome of other expiriments!

Week 1 Reflection

     So far, Chemistry is AWESOME! I LOVE CHEMT3AM! I like how we do a lot of hands on activities. Even though its only been a week, I have learned a lot! I learned how to use EMPOWER to remember things. I learned that the answer isn't always as important as the way that you get there. I've made some new friends and I feel like our class is going to be a great team! 

     The other day, we did this activity where we had to guess what the bottom of the box had on it. We all reasoned together as a class and came to a consensus that there couldn't be anything on the bottom of the box. We were right and it was really cool! 

      Another activity in this class that I had fun with was when we all got a different sheet of paper and we had to match up with three other people. The three other people would be in the same category as the name on our sheet of paper. For example, my group all had different states. During this activity, there were many groups and we didn't exactly know where to put each person. Some people had things like Saturn, which we didn't know whether to put in the category of cars or planets.  This made the activity more difficult. All in all, we once again reached a consensus as a class and had everybody in the right groups!

     I think that this year, chemistry will be a challenge. We took a pretest type of thing to see what we already knew about chemistry...I knew absolutely NOTHING. Hopefully, at the end of the year when we get to retake that test, I will do a lot better. I feel like if the class continues to be as fun as it is right now, it will be no problem to learn a lot and have an awesome time. 

     I am really looking forward to the rest of the year in this class. I really like Mr. Abud because he just seems like a cool guy... at least so far.... Anyways, I really like science in general so I am kind of excited to see what this year brings.  Challenge Accepted. 

Peace.