Week 29

It seems as though we did not make much progress in the 29th week of chemistry.  The week was slow, and continued to base our work around proportions.  In the beginning of the week, we ran through a bunch of different experiments, like burning magnesium, mixing lead nitrate and sodium iodide, putting aluminum foil in copper sulfate, and a few more.  The purpose of these experiments, though, was to learn more about the proportions.  The results of the reactions we caused wouldn't have happened if it weren't for us having the correct proportions of reactants.  With this increased work with proportions, we returned to our work with moles.  This work, however, came in a different format.  We now use moles with BCA Tables.  BCA stands for Before Change After.  We use these tables to track the transfer of moles of atoms of each element in a reaction.  We can also predict how much of one element with be used or produced based on the proportions in the equation.  This process of measuring chemical reactions is referred to as stoichiometry.  What we've done so far is just the beginning of stoichiometry and we will continue our work with it in days to come.  Before our assessment for the week, Mr. Abud proved to us in one more experiment the importance of proportions.  In a large water jug, he put ethanol in and swirled it around.  He then lit a match and dropped it in, causing the ethanol to ignite for a quick moment.  Then, he put in more ethanol than the first trial, and tried dropping in the match again, except there was only a flame at the top of the jug.  This is because there was not enough oxygen in the jug to react with the ethanol and create the same effect as the first trial.  Our assessment covered balancing an equation, and then making a BCA table to predict an outcome of a reaction.  I'm sure our study of stoichiometry will grow into much larger concepts.