Our last unit was unit seven, and it's main focus was balancing equations. In order to help us visualize balancing equations we made before and after particle drawings, or we just continued to add on the elements until they were equally balanced on both sides. We were either given the compound of the reactants and products or we were given the word description and had to first write the equation and then balance it out on both sides. By balancing the equation we had to insert the proper coefficient that would balance both the reactant and the product. I found that just adding onto the element to even out the reactant and compound was way more helpful than doing particle diagrams, just because I felt it was more organized and you could see it better than having to switch on and off using different colored pens to show the different elements. This unit tied into other units that we have done in the past through using the element and compounds and recognizing the molar mass, and watching for the ionic and molecular compounds that we did in unit six. At first my weakness of this unit was fully understanding how to balance an equation if you have an even amount of a compound on one side verses a odd number on the other side of the compound. Mrs. Hetter just taught me that you have to just keep going back and forth and that it's just basically the common multiple of the two. So that helped a lot because my first instinct of every compound like that was to find the common multiple and then the other compounds revolved around that compound that had to be balanced out. A strength that I think I had this trimester was being able to do the word problems since we did that last unit and so putting together the equations was super simple, as well as just catching onto this unit. I feel as if we jumped into it super quickly and it was kinda just presented in front of us the day after the test and once we completed the nail lab and nobody really knew how to do it, and it was just a free for all. A lab we did was going around the classroom and doing multiple experiments and basically seeing the reactions and balancing them out. Such as the copper and wool experiment. Something I would've done differently in this class was probably study for the tests a little more. I underestimate some classes, and either way I know I test terribly. Most the time I do know the content but once it's on the test I freak out a little and my brain goes blank and also some things are worded differently. I think that this course was kinda fun, it was pretty basic. But nothing new with the way that Skyline presents their science program. Nobody really took white boarding seriously and I think that was a waste of time. Half the time my group didn't know how the labs were related to the unit at all either. I think that the blog assignment was pretty cool, I've never had a teacher that's used blogger. But at the end of the week, reflecting on what I did in chemistry and having to get out my worksheets and go over the content briefly was pretty helpful. Some recommendations that I would give this chemistry class would to be using our class time more efficiently. Every time we did white boarding we would take all hour to 'wait' for everybody else and our table would be done in five minutes, and that's how it was for all groups. Then the next day we would white board the answers and I don't think it was really useful for anybody and it was just another day of procrastinating. Some more positive feedback would be doing the experiments. I think we did more experiments in this chemistry class than I've done in previous ACIS science classes.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Sunday, November 8, 2015
November 2-6, 2015- Isabel Nowak
This week in chemistry class we prepared and took a test on ionic and molecular compounds. We concluded that ionic compounds are made up of a non-metal and a metal. Whereas a molecular compound is made up of two non-metals. We learned how to solve both the ionic and molecular equations. I have previous knowledge about how to calculate these equations from AP chemistry because we learned this material in our June online homework assignment. However, we were able to use a periodic table with the names of the metals, transition metals, and non-metals which made it extremely helpful because we didn't have to also cram that material in our head. For ionic compounds you use roman numerals to represent the first element in the equation, only if it's a transition metal. For molecular compounds you use prefixes such as "dioxide" to represent two oxygen. We took our test on Thursday and we had a Tuesday off, and I wasn't present on Monday so I mostly had to study on my own. I think I did fairly well. The only part where I questioned myself was the multiple choice because I just felt like some of the wording was weird. That's the only part I'd say I needed help with. I think there was like a three element compound that was molecular and I didn't know how to name that compound too. Another thing that I thought was super helpful was our pink sheet and it was named the "Common and a Few Not-So-Common Ions". Basically we had a portion of the test where we just had to name the formula and so the answers were basically right in front of us. On Friday we started Unit 7 and first we started the Nail Lab. It's a three day lab but all we did was put copper (II) chloride and distilled water to the beaker. Then we placed three nails into the copper chloride solution. We observed that the solution turned blue. Originally the cooper chloride was just a green powdery substance. Once we placed the nails into the solution we found that small bubbles were appearing on the nails. Not above the nails were bubbles showing or on the surface of the solution but specifically on the nails. The last assignment that we did for the November 2-6th week was the reaction equations worksheets. You basically just have to balance the equations out. You can visualize the balancing through either particle diagrams or writing the equation for the compound over and over until it's balanced. I would say that our participation this week was well. I always think that our table works very well together. Typically when one of us is stuck on a problem we always problem solve easily. I would rate my understanding of the week pretty well. I think I knew most of the material. We didn't focus on much other than the test though, but I think that most of the class probably did well because we were prepared and it was mainly just the ionic and molecular compounds we focused on and their equations.
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