Week 23

This week in Chem, we tackled a whole new part of chemistry.  Particles that are smaller than the atoms themselves.  So far, we've begun to tackle the electron.  To introduce the concept at first, we did a very simple lab in which Mr. Abud rubbed a pen on his shirt, and circled it around a match balanced on a cologne bottle.  This match followed the pen with no contact! We determined that the match moved thanks to the electrostatic charge. By rubbing the pen on his shirt, he charged it and changed something about the particles that we do not yet know.  We did a small lab with two pieces of tape that were ripped from each other and put them near other objects to see if they'd attract or repel, and came to the conclusion that opposite charges attract, and same charges repel.  With the fact that there are things smaller than atoms, we needed a new way to draw particle diagrams.  We now use circles with dots in them to signify the electrons.  So, to differentiate between the negatively charged and positively charged objects, we have more electrons in the one that's negatively charged.  This follows the theory that we are going off of for particles.  The theory we use says that there's a surplus and deficiency of 1 single type of particle.  The other theory we are aware of is that there may simply be 2 types of particles, positive and negative, but we have no proof for that yet.  We also learned of a new property called conductivity.  Conductivity so far, means that the electrons can flow through.  So we played a game.  This game was called Will it Conduct?  In this game we had a small circuit consisting of three wires, two batteries and a light bulb.  We had the batteries connected to the lightbulb through the wires, but also connected some substance in the circuit to see if the lightbulb would still light up.  We concluded that all the metals would conduct, and nonmetals did not conduct.  There's still so much to learn in this unit and I look forward to discovering the more in-depth concepts.

Week 22

Week 22 was a little less about chemistry. We only had 2 full days and 3 half days, leaving us with only 3 chemistry classes. This week's schedule was because of the standardized testing that the juniors had to do. So, sophomores took the ACT Plan. I thought that the plan was very easy and I was in good shape for next years ACT. The juniors had more tests, though, which left us with a few half days. On these days we had classes 1-3 on one, and 4-7 on the other. Our chemistry consisted of continuing our work with balancing equations. We focused on using the importance of ratios to be able to balance equations. Using ratios and phrases like "combines with" along with small pictures, balancing equations is a piece of cake. As class ended, we started with the concept of moles and mass while balancing equations and how we can find those in the process.