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.