Week Nineteen

This week in chemistry was only a four day week because we had a snow day on Friday. We did two labs this week that were both really cool to me. The first one we got to mix hydrogen chloride with zinc and see what it resulted in. To collect the gas that the mixture produced we used the tubs. For this experiment safety was important since the hydrogen chloride could be dangerous if it came in contact with skin so we had to make sure we were wearing goggles at the times. After getting the acid and the zinc we put them both in the same container and then connected it with the tub. The first time we did this my group found that our cork was too small for out container so the gas was being released. This meant that we had to start over. After making sure everything fix right we combined the acid and zinc again and attached it to the tub and observed. As the mixture started to react it looked like it was fizzing and started to produce a gas. The gas the then went into the jar in the tub and we waiting for it to be filled. Once it was filled we wanted to see if it was combustible to find out what gas it was so we put a match under the jar and it made a popping sound meaning that it was combustible. After looking online to see the properties of hydrogen gas we determined that was what it was. The second experiment was when we heated magnesium. Mr. Abud told us that we wouldn't be able to look right at it because it would hurt our eyes, I didn't really know what he was talking about. When he actually heated it, it got really bright. I don't really understand why it got so bright though.

Week Eighteen

First week into the new semester. The year is going by fast.We started off the new semester with an online lab which I thought was pretty cool. The website explained the experiment and gave us some background information on it and then allowed us to carry on the experiment while taking notes of the masses and volumes of the substances as we went. The next few days of the week we spent talking about and trying to understand the lab. We started to talk about proportions and ratios, which is ironic because that is what we are doing in my geometry class at the moment. When we first got introduced to the ratio problems they confused me alot. Then then next day came and we discovered the rule that made it all make senes to me. That both sides had to be the same ratio, whether is was 1 to 2 or 2 to 1. Once I started to understand it the problems kinda became fun for me to figure out. I'm a big math person so I was pretty happy we were combining science with math concepts. We only delt with diatomic elements with the examples we did in class so I think when I come to a problem  that doesn't have diatomic elements that will be more challenging, but I'm up for it! We had a problem like that on our assessment on Friday but it was alittle different. In class we just put the element names in the boxes but on the test we had to draw in the atoms and there was no names of elements given they were just gas A and gas B. With the different wording and not having the names of the elements it kinda confused me so I'm not really sure how I did on that problem. Also for one problem on our assessment we had to draw a graph on the mixture of two substances when we were given their boiling points. I knew that since they had different boiling points one substance would start to evaporate faster than the other so at that point in the graph the wrote that the substance withe the lower boiling point had evaported and did the same for the second substance. The only thing that I didn't do was put the substances as two different lines when each started to boil so I'm not sure if that one was completely correct.