The jury may be out on the truth of these statements, but all my students passed!
Pictured above: pirate hat, penguin mask, yellow lei, number one finger, polly the parrot, and pirate hat as a beard.
We have started liquids and have talked about the different kinds of solutions. We have briefly discussed molarity and will finish liquids tomorrow and after Thanksgiving. Molarity is the amount of moles in a solution and is a measure of concentration.
Today students will be taking their last benchmark to help them prepare mentally for the upcoming SOL (less than 2 weeks away).
Today we started learning about the behavior of gases and the factors that affect them. Gases are lightweight fast moving particles that generally have a lot of empty space between them. Because of this, they are easily compressible (pictured left). If not contained, gases can spread (or diffuse) to fill any size and shape container.
Gases are affected by pressure, volume, number of moles, and temperature. Changing any one of these variables, changes all the others.
basically the ingredient that limits how much products you can make.
I am a mean teacher in an SOL class, so assignments came first, and then door decorating.
After ten minutes, students did more observations and re-weighed the gum.
The gum weighed less... why? Because the sugar dissolved and was lost. Using this weight difference, students determined the percent composition of sugar in the gum they chewed. We worked on making a data chart to make some comparisons and we will finish this on Friday.
Everyone seemed to have the hang of things so we got out the white boards and did some practice problems. Everyone tried the problems and erased any mistakes with ease. I know they know it even if they feel a little overwhelmed. Kristina and Elijah are pictured here concentrating and working out mole math problems.
Platinum (Amy)
The rest of the top 10 are…..
2nd Germanium (Kelsea)
3rd Antimony (Angie)
4th Potassium (Ryan)
5th Argon (Lisa)
6th tie - Radon (Steven) and Actinium (Amanda)
7th Xenon (Elijah)
8th Neon (Kristina)
9th Molybdenum (Megan)
10th Boron (Kelly)
Today, students started the day with a small review about coefficients, subscripts, and how to count atoms. We covered some of the material that was on the last benchmark and answered some questions and had a small discussion about test taking skills.
Tomorrow is Election Day for Element for President! We will see which element campaigns the best!
Student projects for Element for President were due today (with no penalty). The election includes members from my chemistry class as well as three of Mrs. Wooodward's chemistry classes. There are not many elements that are not participating.
We arrange the posters on the wall the same way a periodic table is set up. You can see we are missing a few candidates, but more will be hung up on Monday. This part of the periodic table is well represented by my class.
Today you will be working on the Element for President project. CAMPAIGN POSTER
Campaign Posters should be neatly done and include the symbol, name, atomic number, and the mass number for your element. They should be in color because color is more eye-catching. They may either be hand-drawn or done on a computer, but the work needs to be done by only you. Campaign posters should be the same size as a regular sheet of paper (8½” x 11”).
CAMPAIGN BUTTON or BUMPER STICKER DESIGNS
Campaign buttons and/or stickers must include the name or symbol of your element and a campaign slogan. Your slogan should be more creative than “Gold for President!” The cheesier the better. Again, color is more eye-catching. They may either be hand-drawn or done on a computer, but the work needs to be done by only you.
Mole Day festivities continued today after students completed a review sheet and asked questions.
Mole day celebrates Avogadro's number of 6.02 x 10 to the 23rd power a ginormous number that helps us keep track of itty bitty atoms.
Here students are particpating in the Mole Hunt and trying to find all the moles I have hidden in the classroom. They kept trying to get me to give them the answer because they were getting frustrated. 
Here Kaitlin tried to get a Mole-in-One from the distances of 6.02, 10, 22.4, 23, and 32.
Other activities included making mole-personalities and actually trying to figure out some chemistry-related moles stuff. This is new to the students and we will be going into that in more depth in out next unit which is all about moles and stoichiometry. More information about moles and mole day can be found here.
Today students learned about reaction rates and how to increase them. They also learned about reversible reactions and how le Chatlier's principle influences shifts of equilibrium in reversible reactions.
Pressure is the tricky one. If pressure is applied to an equilibrium, then the reaction will shift to the side that has the least amount of molecules (count the coefficients).
Students were able to measure the temperature change with the thermometers and also feel the temperature change by holding the beakers. Kyle thought it was pretty neat to feel the temperature change, but admitted that we don't need any endothermic reactions in this classroom - it's cold enough already!
We started by talking about the simple definition of the terms, what the probably products and reactants are and went over a basic formula for the reaction types the students need to be familiar with.
Today students learned a few more key terms like monatomic, diatomic, and polyatomic molecules. We discussed polar and non polar covalent bonds and how they share their electrons. POLAR BEARS DON'T SHARE is the way to remember that polar bonds are when electrons are shared unequally. Water is a polar molecule because oxygen doesn't share its electrons equally with the hydrogens. This is why water is sticks together in long drops when it drips.
Today students practiced ionic bonding by doing a little speed dating. Each student chose an element that was an anion or cation, designed a little person to embody that element, and recorded some basic information about the element based on its placement on the periodic table.
Students then took turns 'speed-dating' with other students by criss-crossing charges, bonding, and naming the ionic compounds they formed. Students were able to practice writing formulas, naming, when to use roman numerals, which ion goes first and more. To the right, Elijah takes advantage of Angie's height as they bond their elements.
After one round, students changed from positive to negative (or negative to positive), made another identity and then practiced bonding all over again. By working with various partners, they were able to help each other work out the problems and answer each others questions. If you look closely, you can see the girl that Kyle drew to be an anion, a negatively charged ion. His cation personality was a man wearing a tophat and a mustache.
Today we also discussed how to write chemical formulas, and what the numbers associated with a chemical formula mean. Coefficients are the big numbers in front and are distributed to the whole molecule (which means you may have to multiply). Subscripts are the little lower numbers and they indicate the number of atoms and only apply to the atom it is to the right of. Students wrote their name as a chemical compound and thought it looked pretty interesting. Some students have long formulas, other short. Even twins do not have the same chemical formula.
Students did very well on their Unit 2 Test on the periodic table and were happy to receive their grades.
Battleship, a classic game by Milton Bradley, is a game easily adaptable to learning electronic configuration.
We learn it as a way to give directions to an element following a pattern going across and then down on the periodic table.
Everyone seemed to get this concept, but there was a little confusion (as I expected). Playing battleship was an excellent way to really practice identifying electronic configuration and get straight some of the silly oddball rules. I don't think the students realized how much they practiced as they attempted to sink destroyers, submarines and battleships. Here Angie concentrates as she attempts to sink one of Elijah's boats.
Different metals are used to produce different colors in fireworks. This is because of the electrons of the elements. The more excited the electrons become the more light will be produced. This also affects the color that is produced. Red colors have the least amount of energy. Blue and purple have the most amount of energy.
Students have been learning about the periodic table and all the parts, regions, periods, groups, and more. There is a lot of terminology that goes with this awesome tool. In zero block practiced some of these concepts by playing Guess Who. I picked an element, and they took turns asking yes or no questions using the correct terminology to narrow down 118 elements down to one. Students enjoyed the game and we will be playing it again to review terminology.
Student discussed properties of metals, nonmetals, and metalloids and learned where to find them on the periodic table. Despite technical difficulties information was conveyed. We finished class with a discussion about electron shells and where electrons can be found in the electron cloud and how this correlated with the way the periodic table is set up. Everyone seemed to get it and we will know for sure when we talk about homework tomorrow.
Atoms are really tiny and we need special microscopes to see them. Here is a neat website with pictures of atoms on a very small scale. This is an atom of Xenon on a Nickel surface. 
Today students saw specific heat and heat capacity in action! This is almost all of the equipment it took to perform this lab.
Students were able to see a precipitate form when mixing lead nitrate and potassium iodide. A precipitate is a solid that forms when two liquids are mixed and a double replacement reaction occurs. Two clear liquids were mixed and formed a bright yellow precipitate with a clear liquid (it looked yellowish because of all the precipitate.
SAMPLE SCENARIO: Albert thinks that if he licks his pencils before sharpening them, they will stay sharper longer. He tests 10 pencils and licks half of them before hand. He then uses them and then compares their sharpness. During testing he dropped three pencils on the floor, but he doesn’t know which ones.
Today started with reviewing the dimensional analysis homework. We discussed how to think about it and how to get started even if you aren't sure what to do. The jump in for the day was a math challenge to see how everyone was doing (and to make some students realize that they may need to focus). Congratulations to Katelyn (did I pick the right one) for being the only person to get all ten of the challenge questions correct. Rock on!
The students and I realized that the bears had grown in size, but it wasn't that apparent until you compared them side by side. Here is Angie's giant yellow gummi bear compared to a normal sized red gummi bear.
Because the bears were bigger and slimier they were a little bit harder to work with. Students still had to take length, height, width, and mass measurements so they could scientifically and quantitatively measure the difference between the original gummi bear and the giant swollen gummi bears. Tayler measured her bear and like most found that it was now about 10 grams - more than 7 grams of gained weight.
Today we discussed proper lab write-ups and started a new lab with Gummy Bears. The students measured and weighed the gummy bears to find mass, volume, and density. Then the gummy bears were put in a cup full of water for one hour to see what would happen. Students hypothesized that the bears would shrink and dissolve or the color would leak out or the bears would get squishier.
Students watched a Brainpop about accuracy vs. precision and then got set up for a lab. Today's lab entitled the rainbow lab, is a trial run for lab safety and also measures the accuracy and precision of their liquid measurements. Patrisha and Ryan finished first and after discovering the error of using different diameter test tubes, had fairly accurate results.
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