Bond Types

Lately we have been learning about different bond types. There are single bonds, double bonds, and sometimes even TRIPLE BONDS! I still don't really get triple bonds though...single bonds are the easiest and double bonds are pretty understandable. We've done a lot of worksheets that help us learn about bonds. What I remember most is HONC because my table name was HONC1234! I love that; it reminds me of a goose or duck! We've been doing Lewis dot structures too! those are pretty easy but it takes me a moment to think of where everything is supposed to go =P We have a lot to memorize for this unit I don't know how I'm going to do it...but somehow I will manage! Hopefully...

Citronellal

My molecule for the project is citronellal. I wanted citric acid because I like oranges and lemons and other citrus fruits, but it was taken. So, I settled with citronellal since it has to do with lemons which is close enough to citric acid. It reminds me of my lemon gum so I'm thinking there might be citronellal in my Orbit Lemon-Line gum but I'm not sure it's edible...this is the point of this project though to find out more about a certain molecule! I need to get working on this this weekend since it's due next week!

Ionic Compounds and the Electromagnetic Spectrum

Last week we learned about naming ionic compounds. There is a cation and an anion. The name of the cation, the metal, goes first and the anion, the nonmetal, goes second with the ending -ide. It also has to balance out to zero. There are two types of these compounds, Type 1 and Type 2 binary compounds. Type 1 binary compounds are your regular metals that will only have one charge and are specific. Type 2 binary compounds' cations have more than one possibility for their charge and are named by using the Roman numeral of their charge.
Also, last week we did a lab that had to do with the visible spectrum and the absorbancy of light at different wavelengths. We messed up on our data, but it was sort of fun changing the test tubes in and out of the machine. Monday we went into the library to make graphs of the data we got from the lab; 2 line graphs and a pie chart! Then we had to answer some questions that were hard, but got help on today. I'm going to miss out on doing the review games on Thursday because of LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIPS =D and then the test is on Friday...hopefully I'll do well =)

A Rainbow of Flames

On Tuesday we did a super cool lab wif FIREEEE!! There were so many different colors and they all looked really pretty. My favorite was the pinkish peach one because pink is my favorite color. Jessica and Chantel were in my group and we took turns doing the experiment. There were little bottles of different compounds and we used a wooden stick with a metal loop at the end and stuck it in the bottle so some of the compound got on the stick. Then, we put it in the fire that was coming from the Bunsen burner and it made pretty colors! There was red, orange, yellow, green, and pink!! It was the coolest lab we've done so far and my FAVORITEEEE =)

More Radiation!

Yaaaaaay we did some more work on radioation this week. Every class, we watched a video on different people who contributed to science, like Michael Faraday, Lise Meitner, and Emilie du Chatelet. I thought it was really cool how there were videos for women in science. We had to do two worksheets for homework. They were sorta hard, buttttttt I managed through them. We also got a powerpoint presentation printout. Now I know gamma radiation is the highest radiation there is and can go through hard surfaces, but alpha radiation and beta radiation can't. E=mc^2 is Einstein's formula where E is energy, m is mass, and C is speed.

Albert Einstein and Half-LIves

This week I missed Tuesday because I had to go to a meet so I didn't get to do the half-life simulation lab. =( On Thursday, we watched a video on how Albert Einstein came up with the equaton E=mc^2 with the help of research from earlier scientists. It was a very interesting video and I learned a lot. For homework we had to do a worksheet that helped me practice alpha and beta decay. Right now, I'm in the computer lab and I made my spreadsheet and graph. Now I'm finishing up my blog entry...and now I'm done!

Radioactivity

This week in chemistry, we focused on radioactivity. Radioactivity occurs when atoms decay and become unstable. They then turn into stable elements I learned about alpha and beta decay and gamma rays. In alpha decay, a He-4 atom is added to the unstable element, causing it to lose 2 neutrons and 2 protons. In beta decay, an electron is added, causing the mass number to stay the same, but a electron is lost, adding a proton to the atomic number. Sometimes, radioactivity produces gamma rays, which have high amounts of energy. Carbon-14 is used to date ancient artifacts.