Thursday, September 2, 2010

Today was a rather average day in Chemistry Class. Mr. Henderson began by taking attendance and then going over the blog post done by Dmitriy from the previous day. Mr. Henderson then explained our homework due Tuesday more thoroughly. The homework was a 1.1 WebAssign on the Classifications of Matter. Mr. Henderson explained how the questions worked and how for some questions you received multiple chances to get them correct.

We then moved on to pages 1 and 2 in our Unit 1 packets. Page 1 and the first half of page 2 were about the symbolic language of mixtures. For the first group we were given a drawing of a substance and asked how many types of atoms were in it and how many types of compounds were in it. Then in part 2 we were given a diagram of the substance, and the symbol for it. We were then asked to describe the substance using words like atom, compound, molecule, element, etc...

The bottom half of page 2 was about the interpretation of mixtures. We were given long symbols for a substance and were asked how maybe elements and compounds there were, as well as the total number of atoms and the total number of molecules. This part was the most difficult for the class to understand.

We finished class up with Lab MM3 or the Salt, Sand, and Iron Lab. The purpose of the lab was to distinguish between salt, sand, and iron on the basis of their physical characteristics. We began by just observing the three substances and recording their color, granular size, and texture. Next we tested each of the item's magnetic properties by moving a magnet over each and seeing how it reacted. My lab group discovered that only iron had magnetic properties and that they were very strong. Next we tested the solubility in water of each substance by adding a little bit of each to a test tube of water and mixing it around. My group found that only salt dissolved in the water and the other two just sunk to the bottom.

Class today was very fun and very educational. The lab was a great way to test properties and it was great to have more practice on the types of matter.