Chemical Names and Symbols

Today in class, we learned a short, brief amount about chemical symbols and compounds. It wasn't much, just a lab where we toured the room, copied down the names of different compounds, and described what they looked like. There were solids and liquids and one glass vial of gas. Some of the substances within the vials were brightly colored and usually had some element of copper in them. A lot of the liquids were clear and, if they weren't labeled, could have been mistaken for water by an amateur.

Conversions (8.29.12)

I’ll admit, I expected today’s class to be a lot more difficult than it turned out to be. We learned how to take a certain value measured in a specific unit and convert it to another unit (keeping the value) that was either larger or smaller. We did several problems in our notes and, after…roughly…the second one, had the skills down. I like how Ms. McDowell used the term “putting on different pants” to describe keeping the original value.

Below are some conversion practice problems.

Significant Figures (8.28.12)

Today's class was devoted to learning about adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing significant figures. In addition to learning about that, we watched several Khan Academy videos that explained the processes in a easy to understand way (to me, at least). The videos were not completely serious, as the narrator making them had quite a habit of stuttering and sometimes I felt myself growing impatient while listening to him. Haha.

Below are the practice problems that I've completed revolving around today's lesson: