Thursday, September 30

Meet the Elements, by They Might be Giants, was the first thing to greet us after entering Mr. Henderson's classroom. After the song ended, Mr. H said that today's lesson would be about forming the families of the Periodic Table. He then went over tonight's homework: a WebAssign on the PT due Friday and write ups on Labs 3 & 4 due near the end of next week.

After that, Mr. H quickly reviewed the periods and groups of the PT, organized by atomic number and chemical properties respectively. Then, we filled page 4 of our packet which covered the physical & chemical properties of certain elements.

Number 8 was reminiscent of the Mendeleev for a Day Lab as we had to organize the elements by atomic number and chemical property. Family # 1 included Aluminum and Gallium because 2 molecules of either and 3 molecules of Oxygen form a compound: Aluminum/Gallium Oxide. In addition, only one molecule of either and 3 molecules of Chlorine form the compound Aluminum/Gallium Chloride.

On the other hand, Family # 2 includes Beryllium, Magnesium, and Calcium. Only one molecule of any of the 3 and one molecule of Oxygen form Beryllium/Magnesium/Calcium Oxide. Plus, only one molecule of the 3 and 2 molecules of Chlorine are needed to form Beryllium/Magnesium/Calcium Chloride.

After organizing the elements into columns, they only needed to be rearranged into rows based on atomic number. The easier task, I'm sure.

The next thing Mr. H showed the class was last night's blog entry, it was quite impressive. Then he went over how to write up Lab AMI 4, the key point being that it be organized.

We skipped over to packet page 17, covering the specific groups in the Periodic Table. His word of advice? "Get to know your PT."

Probably the highlight of the day for most of the students was the "Potassium video." An educational video clip demonstrating how this particular element reacts violently with water. A lot of people found it funny and, well, just see for yourself.

Well, no one can say science is boring. Mr. H promised us the next day he would be dumping a chunk of Sodium, should be interesting to see it in person. Approaching the end of class, we concluded with page 3 of our packet.

(Pretend page 3 is here.)

For the groupings: AM=Alkali metals, AEM=Alkali Earth metals, and ML= Metaloids. Well, that's all for now. See ya tomorrow!