Week 8 Reflective Post

Starting off the week, we learned that most people had bombed the test that we had the previous week.  Because of that, we had a bit more work this week.  Our first lab of the week was the Nail Lab.  To start off the lab, we massed out a beaker and then the beaker with an added Copper (II) chloride dihydrate.  Our last mass calculation was the mass of our nails.  The last step was we placed the nails in the solution in the beaker, and put the beaker in the fume hood.  Day 2 was a bit more exciting in my opinion.  The instructions told us to take out the nails from the solution and scrape off the copper metal.  Seeing that our nails had entirely dissolved and all we had was copper, our final mass of the nails was 0 grams.  We decanted the solution so we could discover the mass of the copper (II) Chloride, and we also found the mass of the dry copper.  After these steps, we did come calculations to find the moles of copper and other pieces of information we could discover from our data.  This lab was a great demonstration of what can happen to solids in certain liquids and certainly paved the way for our next lab.

 

Most of the worksheets we did this week focused on the balancing of equations.  They contained both word problems and number problems.  The basic concept of the balancing of equations is fairly simple, you need both sides to have the same number of atoms with the right quantity of elements.  However, when you get to the more complicated equations, things get a lot harder.  For one, you're working with more numbers, but also to balance the equation you need to take multiple steps to ensure that you're getting the correct numbers.  At first, I really struggled with the harder problems.  I could never get the correct numbers for the atoms, as I didn't correctly have down a certain strategy that helped.  As I continued though, I started to understand the problems a lot better and I even started getting some correct answers.  I guess practice really does make perfect.
Our second and last lab of the week was extremely exciting.  It consisted of 10 stations, with each one displaying a different experiment.  The experiments went from inserting Zinc into 3 HCL to lighting a liquid compound on fire.  What these experiments were really meant to do, were to display the different types of reactions.  These reactions included double replacement reactions, combination reactions, decomposition reactions, and single replacement reactions.  Each reaction has certain characteristics that define how we know what kind of reaction each reaction is.  This lab was overall extremely fun, (we got to safely play with fire in some experiments), but it was also extremely beneficial as it gave us examples of some very important reaction concepts we need to know.
Our homework for the main part of the week was the 6 task chains.  Because we all performed poorly on the test, we are required to complete all 6 of the task chains by Monday night, with a score of at least an 85 for each.  I think this is extremely fair as we won't get any better by completing our homework with a score less than that.  These task chains cover everything from naming certain compound to understanding and applying ionic and covalent compounds.  Although the first few were pretty easy, the last three were definitely a bit trickier and it took some time before I was able to completely figure them out.  Overall though, they will be a great help to me and the class for when we retake our test.

Week 7 Reflective Post

Continuing into Unit 6, we started off the week with a worksheet that described and helped us practice the art of naming Ionic compounds.  The worksheet started off with some basic questions such as the differences between cations and anions and elements that correspond with these groups.  From the periodic table we were given it was very easy to come up with the answers to these questions.  Continuing through this packet, we started naming more and more ionic compounds while also learning their formulas.

On Wednesday we started worksheet 3 of Unit 6.  This worksheet once again covered ionic compounds but now that we had previous knowledge on them, we were able to answer the questions fairly easily.  Most of the worksheet was either naming a compound from a given formula or naming the formula of a given compound.  This worksheet was a great help and solidified our understanding of ionic compounds.
On Wednesday, we also started our poly-atomic ions Pogil.  Understanding and being able to apply what those are was a very important part of the unit.  At first, we covered how to find the charges of the different ions and also how to determine the chemical formula and the type and number of atoms. Once we had mastered that basic material, we went more in depth into the concept and answered some trickier questions by using our gained knowledge.  Further into the worksheet we went over ternary ionic compound and how to write the formulas and common names for them.  At first it was a bit confusing, but after completing some of the practice problems it made a lot more sense.
Our final Pogil we did was a fairly long one covering molecular compounds.  Like most of the other packets, we started off by identifying basic characteristics such as number of atoms in the compounds and how many different elements were involved.  After we completed this part, we started focusing on the names of the compounds themselves.  The prefixes and the suffixes of a compound can tell us a lot about the compound because certain compounds are part of different groups.  Along with this, we went through and learned how to name certain elements based on their chemical formulas.  This worksheet was once again another great example of the compound and elements we will encounter in the unit and I'm excited to learn more about it.

On Friday, we mostly covered the review and any other questions we still had.  The review was an excellent compilation of all the work we have been doing for this week and it really helped further educate me on what might or might not be on our test.  We also white boarded most of our answers and once again that was really helpful because I could see what other groups got for their answers and if I got the correct answers.  Overall, this was a fun unit and I can't wait to see what we'll learn about in unit 7.