Days 33-37: Final Exam Review

Final review cumulated with a day of thought experiments and good times with magic sand as a way of interacting with intermolecular forces!

Day 32: Molarity Practice

Boring day in class. No pics from class so here's me with a guerrilla.

Days 26-32: Beer's Law, etc.

Have done a bunch of stuff in the past 6 days and have lagged on posting updates. Favorite activity was derivation of Beer's Law using blue dye of varying concentrations and path lengths via an overhead projector.

Day 25: Magic Sand

Post quiz Lab practical comparing traditional sand and magic sand. Students worked to induce chemical structures of both to explain observed differences in IMFs.

Day 24: FRQs

Sorta boring day working through AP FRQs on IMFs. However...TETRIX bots for FTC arrived today and the team was stoked!

Day 23: Document Analysis

Leverages chromatography to solve a mock crime scene.

Day 22: Solubility

Used hexane, water, iodine demo to spark interest in hexane, water, copper sulfate solubility. Reversal of solute properties provided nice dissonance.

Day 21: Mass Structure Quiz

Quiz day and Lewis Structure tattoos!

Day 20: Formula of an Oxide

Applied hydrate analysis technique to silver oxide analysis. Not sure why all teams arrived with AgO rather than Ag2O? Going to force next class to perform 5 constant mass measurements.

Day 19: Hydrate Analysis Again

Repeated analysis with Epsom Salt with an emphasis on heating to constant mass.

Day 18: Hydrate Analysis

Students worked to determine the formula for an unknown copper (II) sulfate hydrate. I was shocked at the number of lab teams who arrived with the "penta hydrate" formula. I think emphasizing the "weigh to constant mass" procedure helped their answers approach the actual salt to water ratio. In the past, 3  or even 4 water molecules for every one copper (II) sulfate compound was the norm. 

Day 17: Lewis Structure Quiz

To be honest, really screwed up this quiz. Too long, lack of appropriate prep on resonance, bond order, polarity, etc. But...did get the below text from an absent student who was traveling, so terse that... :)

Day 16: Lewis Structures

Lewis Structure relay races in preparation for quiz.

[no picture today]

Day 14: Covalent Bonding

Did a cr@p ton of Lewis Structures and then students shaved my head. #assimilation #teammusallam

Day 13: Chromatography

Leading off Lewis Structure cycle with solubility analysis. Considering an apply day with a CSI focus.

Day 12: Soldering

Concluding our bonding cycle using soldering as a way to learn more about the application of alloy chemistry.

Day 11: Quiz Prep

Typical quiz prep day. Displayed various images of particle diagrams and students responded one of the following: Ionic, Polar Covalent, Non-Polar Covalent, Metallic (Interstitial or Substitutional Alloy), or Network Covalent. Students then buzzed in their answer using a form. See image
Since each team had a separate column of the form to enter their response, the associated spreadsheet told me who answered first in a visual way (better than tracking time stamp). See image. I'm sure there is some fancy application that could do this better, but in the end, hacking it up this way was more fun for me, and visual for the kids. IMO. .

Days 9,10: Ionic and Metallic Bonding

Using soldering and home-made conductivity meters to study alloy and ionic lattice structures.

Day 8: Unknown Identification

Qualitative analysis of bonding patterns. Starting with particle model overview on macro level to build greater property awareness.

Day 7: Octadecanol

Melting, freezing and modeling Octadecanol.

Day 6: Bonding Intro

Visual inquiry around particle diagrams bonding. Boring but important.

Day 5: Flame Tests

Relating Ionization Energy to emission spectrum. Led to discussion about what causes a "Green Flash".

Day 3: Coulomb's Law

Modeling Ionization Energy using cardboard and magnets!

Day 2.5: ABCC

[sub day]

While I was gone, students worked on the Assessment of Basic Chemistry Concepts inventory (ABCC). The inventory is a pre-test designed to assess conceptual understanding of general chemistry phenomena. I used the google script "Flubaroo" to grade and email them students their scores. I did not provide a key as I am hopeful that this pre-test will help to cultivate a year that begins with a conceptual flavor and also assist students in identifying any conceptual gaps in their understanding. I plan on administering the ABCC inventory again, at the close of the year, and comparing results.

Day 2: Safety

Safety day! Chemistry Cat helped us do some inquiry around acid dilution followed by the ole HCl on egg over projector to scare kiddos into wearying goggles!

Day 1: Safety

Spent the first day if class playing human sized Jenga and going over safety! Great day and a reminder that starting with team building and foundational behavior is a great first exposure combo.