Science Posters and Energy Notes

Welcome back after a 5 day weekend. Reminder to everyone to work on their science posters. Here is a copy of the Rubric for the Poster. We introduced Energy, focusing on Potential and Kinetic energy. Here are the notes: Energy Notes. We looked at how energy changes it form as it moves from the nuclear reaction in the sun, comes to earth, is absorbed by a plant or a photovoltaic cell and then where it goes from there.

Short Week and a new Unit

We only had two days of class this week with the Parent Teacher Conferences coming up.
Monday we reviewed our Chemistry Tests. Everyone will be doing a science experiment poster for Science Day which is March 11th. The posters will be due on Thursday, March 10th. Students may do a completely new experiment, they can turn their Bird Investigations into a poster, or they can add onto those investigations (like take some data for this time of year and compare it to the data they took in November). We will have some time in class to work on these posters, but only a couple of days. Most of the work will have to take place outside of class.
Tuesday we had an introduction into nuclear fission and nuclear power. This is kicking off our new Physics Unit. We will be focusing on energy and energy production to start with.

Chemistry Unit Test

We had our unit test on Thursday. Most everyone did pretty well. Here is a copy of the test: Chemistry Unit Test. No school on Friday because of a teacher writing day. We will finish up the trimester on Monday and Tuesday before Parent-Teacher conferences. We will be spending time getting ready for Science Day on March 11th. Each student will be making a poster of one of their experiments.

Chemistry Review

We spent the last couple of days reviewing for our end of unit Test. The test will be this Thursday, February 17th. I passed out a Study Guide that we have been going over in class. We had an open notes review quiz last week (Open Notes Chem Review). We will be doing more review and practice tomorrow to get ready for the test. Homework was collected today. No homework except to study for the test.

Chemical Bonding

Yesterday we reviewed some of the basics of atomic structure and how to draw molecules. Today we went to a website called Teacher's Domain. It has a lot of material from WGBH, the Public TV station in Boston. We went through several tutorials on Ionic, Covalent, and Metallic bonding. If you want to check it out, go to www.teachersdomain.org. You can create your own account and join Group ID number 6232 to see what we did. Look through the files in Chemical Bonding, Atomic Structure, and Periodic Table.
Homework was assigned yesterday. Read Chapter 4.2 "Ionic and Covalent Bonding" pp.115-122, answer questions 1, 2, & 5. Due Tuesday, Feb 15th.

Atomic Structure and Periodic Table Tricks

We have been practicing using our Periodic Tables. Using them to map out diagrams of atoms of different elements. How many protons, neutrons, and all the electrons in their various shells. Today we watched some videos from The Periodic Table of Videos, a website from the University of Nottingham, England. We watched the video about Sodium (Na) and saw how reactive it is with water. Pretty cool stuff. Here are some notes on Mysteries of the Periodic Table Revealed-Part Two. We will keep practicing these as we move on to chemical bonding this week. Here is a practice sheet for drawing models of the elements. Atomic Model Practice Page. Here is another cool resource from PBS. It is called Atom Builder and it lets you construct basic atoms by adding protons, neutrons, and electrons. It has some great background information as well.

Dry Ice and Lab Reports

Tuesday and Wednesday we conducted our Dry Ice Investigations, gathered data, and started organizing our notes into Lab Reports. These reports will be due on Friday, February 4th. They need to follow the guidelines in the handout that we used in class. The finished paper needs to be typed/word processed and can be printed out or emailed to me. Homework was collected today and no new reading homework assigned.