So glad I'm not taking another class right now!

I just wrapped up week 3 of my summer chemistry class. I’m still up in Northern California and I must admit it’s been one of the less-relaxing vacations I’ve had so far. I spend most of my afternoons doing the readings or homework or assignments… I never feel like I’m truly done. It’s too bad because the weather cleared up and it’s been nice and warm, but I almost feel guilty spending time outside doing fun things. In the back of my head I’m always thinking “There’s that discussion board I need to remember to post on, and there’s that homework objective I need to finish, and oh yeah I need to review for the exam, but I can’t do that tomorrow because we’ll be gone so I need to try to squeeze that in today, and…” But in the grand scheme of things this class is more important to my future than this vacation, so I just need to deal with it!

 Beautiful, isn't it? So happy the sun decided to come out!

Speaking of trying to get things done, I’ve noticed that I’m having a hard time trying to balance all the requirements for this class. I feel like there’s a lot of “busy work,” which is usually fun work, but I’m concentrating so much on getting those assignments in that I have a hard time fitting in the actual textbook reading. I also feel like I haven’t been able to actually study the material… a lot of it sinks in through the homework, but I’m having a hard time staying one step ahead that way.

Well, on to what I did for the class this week. I read chapters 10, and 17 in the textbook (on “Chemical Bonding” and “Radioactivity and Nuclear Chemistry,” respectively). I remember most of the material that was covered this week; it helps that I’ve always enjoyed working with chemical formulas and things like half-life. In thinking over how these readings relate to my dental hygiene major, I have to admit nothing from chapter 10 jumped out at me, other than the mention of “How Soap Works” on 343. One of the most fundamental rules in a medical field: wash wash and wash your hands. I’m sure there’s more there that I will pick up on once I start my dental hygiene studies, but for now there was nothing obvious. On the other hand, I did see how chapter 17 related to dental hygiene. I volunteered in a dental office for a couple of months earlier this year and learned how to develop the x rays. A dental hygienist is responsible for taking x rays, which are a form of electromagnetic radiation.

I also thought the section on the Shroud of Turin on page 632 was interesting. I recently watched a fascinating BBC special that examined new evidence supporting the claim that it is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. The carbon-14 dating is still an obstacle, but looking at the historical and medical aspects of the shroud definitely throws some doubt on it being a medieval forgery. Here’s the special in case anyone is interested in watching it. If you’re interested in history, religion and/or chemistry it is definitely worth the watch.

In “Uncle Tungsten” I read chapters 8, 20 and 23. I had to laugh reading chapter 8 (“Stinks and Bangs”) because we took a day trip up to Lassen National Park on Thursday, and there is a section along the road through the park that has some sulfur springs. There is definitely a strong “rotten egg” smell right along that section, and my 12-year-old brother always pulls his shirt over his face and begs our dad to “Go faster, get me out of here!” Unfortunately the speed limit at that stretch of the road is 15 mph, so he suffers for awhile. The college I graduated from a few years ago is also located right by some sulfur springs; we couldn’t smell them from campus but you sure could as you approached the entrance from the road. We all called it “the smell of knowledge.” Chapter 20 (“Penetrating Rays”) fit right in with the use of x rays in dental hygiene. It was fascinating reading Sacks’ description of the history of the x ray, and I got a giggle out of the prim Victorians’ horrified reaction to the… lack of privacy… they anticipated from x rays. In some ways it reminded me of the current controversy over full-body image scans at airports. Chapter 23, “The World Set Free,” focused on radioactivity, half life and radiation. The most interesting part of the chapter to me was when he said on page 284 that “The earth was still living, in terms of atomic energy, on the uranium and thorium that had been present when the earth was formed.” I had never thought about radioactive elements helping keep the earth warm, nor had I thought about how radioactive elements can be traced back to those original two.

The videos this week were very helpful. “Electronegativity & Polarity” covered a topic that can easily get confusing for me, but it broke it down and made it clearer. The videos on “Alpha Decay,” “Beta Decay,” “Positron Emission,” “Decay Series,” and “Half Life” all made the math involved in solving the problems look easy and I understood everything without a problem.

Moving on to experiments! Looking back over the last several weeks, I have to say my favorite one has probably been the layering liquids experiment. I loved seeing how the different colors floated on top of each other. It illustrated the concept of density clearly and in a fun way. I thought the section with the sugar water was especially illuminating. In the other section I took totally different liquids… soap, oil, water, etc., and layered them. It’s clear that they have different densities, but if you didn’t think too much about it you could just say “Well, they’re different substances with different ingredients. Maybe that’s why one floats on the other.” On the other hand, the only difference between the sugar water samples was the number of sugar particles in each, so density was the immediate explanation for the results. As a side note, a close second for the experiments would have to be the experiments involving Skittles and M&Ms, for purely selfish reasons, unfortunately.

I did my oral presentation this week! The experiment itself was pretty easy and straightforward, though I believe I overthought the question about relating the different particles to the different colored blocks. I took a break and after I allowed my head to clear out a bit I understood it better. Assembling the film was a bit of a production. I hadn’t anticipated that our family would be taking our annual boat ride on the lake on Saturday, and I hadn’t been able to start the presentation before. The whole time I was on the boat I was thinking “I gotta work on that video… I gotta work on that video… oh yeah, I have to do that video.” So when I got back to the cabin I rushed to the computer, still in my swimsuit and feeling nasty from the sunscreen and started work on the video. Initially I was really stumped because there wasn’t much “exciting” to show for the camera… you can only show yourself shaking a bag of M&Ms and counting print-side-up candies so many times before it gets monotonous. I stressed for about an hour without making any progress, retrieved the leftover M&Ms to console myself, and eventually worked out a format that *hopefully* wouldn’t bore the audience to tears. Once I got it uploaded to Youtube (my first ever video on Youtube!) and watched it all at once I was pretty happy with it. Here it is!

Lab 4 was interesting because it was a lab sheet and not a report. I thought that meant it was going to be a cinch… oh boy was I wrong. I was still having a hard time with the concept of molecular geometry at that point so initially I was spending way too much time cross checking and second guessing myself. It took me several hours just to make the gumdrop structures, and then when I went back and looked at them I realized several of them were wrong, so I had to go back and redo them. I then spent another couple of hours filling out the rest of the sheet. I think I got the hang of it by the end of the experiment, but I was very relieved to see that experiment 5 involved nothing more complicated than shaking bags of M&Ms and wooden blocks!

Well, so ends week 3 of chemistry. I have a feeling the next couple of days are going to be super stressful; we go back home Tuesday so I need to have everything that’s due that day done by tomorrow. I’m not looking forward to cramming for an exam and packing on the same day. Oh well, hopefully once I’m home I can get more of a routine going! Until next week!

Welcome to this special edition of Jenessa’s Chem 1000 Blog, brought to you from Lake Almanor, CA! We arrived yesterday evening after 12 hours of travel, me with textbook, notebooks, computer, scanner, and lab supplies in tow. When chemistry homework will allow, I am more than ready to kick back and enjoy the next week or so sunning, swimming and enjoying everything the mountains have to offer. It looks a little drab in the pictures, since we’ve got some cold weather, rain, and thunderstorms (imbalance of charges!) in the forecast tomorrow… so the sunning plans will have to go on hold for a few days. If I’m going to be stuck inside, though, it’ll be a good time to really work ahead on the assignments for this week!

This past week I read chapters 3 and 4 in the textbook (on “Matter and Energy” and “Elements and Molecules,” respectively). I remember all of the material from high school chemistry, so I was still in review mode. The one thing from chapter 3 that I’ll need to keep working on is the math involved with temperature scales and changes. I can do the math with no problems, but it’s remembering all the conversions and formulas that gets me. I enjoyed re-visiting the periodic table in chapter 4; I’ve always enjoyed studying the elements. I also enjoy the math aspect of it much more than the conversions we were dealing with earlier. I’m not sure exactly why, but maybe it’s because I feel like a detective trying to solve a mystery (like when we’re given fractions of isotopes and asked to find the atomic mass). Overall I felt that the reading was understandable, though since I didn’t really learn anything new it wasn’t exactly interesting. The one exception was reading about the radioactive isotopes in the “Chemistry in the Environment” section on page 110. Since we live within an hour or so of the troubled San Onofre power plant I appreciated learning more about how these plants work.

Thinking about how these readings tie into my major, dental hygiene… I don’t see a direct connection in how I would use what I learned. However, certain elements are used in the dental field, so learning about the trends and characteristics of elements on the periodic table would help me understand why an element like titanium would be used in dentistry. In fact, when I started researching titanium for my elemental brochure, I was surprised to see that it was used for both dental implants and in toothpaste.

Speaking of the brochure assignment, I really enjoyed working on it. I had no idea that titanium had been named after the Titans, and since I love Greek mythology I thought that was a fun fact. I also had been told that titanium wedding rings were too strong to be cut off if the finger began to swell, so it was interesting to discover that wasn’t true. I enjoyed looking at my classmates’ brochures as well. I thought the brochure on mercury was fascinating, especially reading about how it has been found in Egyptian tombs (I’m also a history fan, so seeing chemistry tying in with ancient civilizations is especially fun for me).

I have really been enjoying “Uncle Tungsten”; even though I’m not nearly as passionate about chemistry as he is, some of his enthusiasm rubs off on me! In the first chapter we read this week he talked about the development of the periodic table. I loved the different ways he described the table… a gorgeous banquet set with eighty-some dishes, different realms or kingdoms, and, perhaps my favorite, the enchanted garden of Mendeleev. I also thought it was fascinating that Mendeleev was able to tell which elements had yet to be discovered and was able to predict what their characteristics would be. In the next chapter he talked about spectroscopy – a method of detecting elements through the colors they produce. The fact that this method could be used to see that helium is present in the sun is amazing. The final chapter discussed the importance of the atomic number in determining the physical and chemical properties of elements. What I found most interesting about these readings actually came from the footnotes. Reading about Moseley’s “charming and boyish” spectroscopy experiment with a train and then reading about his death in WWI was surprisingly moving. I had never thought of these brilliant minds as being among those fighting in the trenches, but it reinforced the terrible toll that war takes on almost every aspect of life. I was also fascinated by the fact that the German scientist Noddack had been right about the atom being split but was ignored because of previously unsubstantiated claims. Thank God for those unsubstantiated claims… it’s amazing that something so seemingly unimportant could’ve been the difference between Germany with the atomic bomb instead of without it.

I watched all of the videos for this unit before doing the readings. Some of them, such as “How to Read Periodic Table Symbols” and “Valence Electrons” were review. But I thought the videos “Groups on the Periodic Table,” “Periodic Trends” and “Electronegativity and Polarity” were very helpful. I do best when things are explained in a very simple, straightforward manner without any frills, like those videos were. I am so happy that we had a video on “Condensed Electron Configuration.” When I watched the “Electron Configuration” video and realized what the longer formulas would look like I thought “Oh boy… I’m in trouble…” And then I watched the “Condensed” version and thought “Whew!” Here are the two videos side by side so you can see what I mean!

Lab this week was fairly straightforward, but turned out to be more time-consuming than I thought. I wanted to do labs 2 and 3 at the same time to give myself a little breathing room at the end of the week while prepping for the trip. I goofed a bit on the steel wool/water part of experiment 2 and measured the water levels on the containers instead of the jars. I need to sit down and read these labs word for word so I don’t keep making silly mistakes like that. Other than that, my main problem was keeping my younger siblings out of the M&Ms and Skittles experiment 3. Whenever the instructions read “Dispose of candies” I had no problems finding willing takers.

I also got a little ahead in the ALEKS homework this week, which was a big help. I have found the ALEKS homework to be helpful in some respects, but in others I find it lacking a bit. Let’s start with the helpful aspects. I like how it’s able to determine what you need to work on and what you already know. It’s very satisfying to see the progress on the pie chart, and the homework problems are very well set up. On the less-than-ideal side, it’s very frustrating when you get a concept down but are marked wrong due to a math error and are given more problems to work on (and if there’s another math error the cycle continues). I know it can’t tell where I went wrong in my math, but I think that’s where paper-and-pencil homework has the advantage. That way I can see that I actually do understand the concept but goofed on a significant figure in the calculations or on rounding. It’s a tough call when doing online homework. I think my ideal homework program would be something like ALEKS, but with a section that allows you to do the problem step-by-step and checks each step to make sure you’re on the right track. That way, instead of going back and doing the complex problem over again (and then discovering the answer isn’t 6.0 but 6.1), you’re able to see exactly where you went wrong.

Speaking of goofing on math problems, I took my first exam today. It was a bit of an ordeal. Of course, we were traveling all day yesterday so it was difficult for me to review. Today the Wifi at the house crashed so I wasn’t able to check our objectives to see what exactly to review. I went over the textbook and did some practice problems, waited to see if the Wifi would come back so I could review… and then realized that I needed Wifi to take the test. When it became clear the Wifi was AWOL I went down and sat outside the realtor’s office to take the test. I wasn’t expecting to see so many math-related problems, and I started blanking on lots of the conversion factors. Usually with some time I’m able to collect my thoughts and get rolling, and I can go back and check my work, but with only about 2 minutes for each problem time wasn’t a luxury I had! I eventually settled in and I was able to solve each problem, but after seeing my grade I suspect lots of those little math errors came back to bite me. Between that, my frustration over the internet situation and my disappointment that I hadn’t been able to prepare better, chocolate was necessary when I got back to the cabin. Well, at least now I have a better idea of what to expect. The first exam with any new class is always nerve-wracking.

So ends week 2 of Chem 1000. I feel like I’m navigating the sites better, and I’m enjoying interacting with the other students on the discussion boards. On the other hand, it was stressful trying to work ahead in preparation for this weekend, and my exam grade is a bit of a bummer. But hopefully this week will be more chill and I’ll be better prepared for my next exam. And now I’m off to the realtor’s office again to get this posted. Until next time!

Updated from realtor’s parking lot: So I just saw my final grade and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. That makes me feel more energized about tackling this week’s work!

 This week I started my online summer Chemistry class. It's been about 6 years since college chemistry and 10 years since high school chemistry, so I'm really hoping it all comes back to me without hitting my head against the book too much. It's also my first time taking an online class with any school other than Weber State, so I was a little nervous! The first thing I noticed was that it seemed like the information was kind of posted all over the place. I was having a hard time keeping the Blackboard site straight from the Google sites, remembering what was where, and in general was a bit overwhelmed. Over a few days, though, I started to get more of a feel for it. And I must say our instructor Amy has been absolutely wonderful about posting instructional videos and also responding to my numerous "Help!" texts within minutes.

Something else I've noticed about this class that's been very different is how much the students work together. In my other online classes I've participated in discussion boards, but overall it felt like you were doing your own thing and working by yourself. In this class I feel like I'm getting to know the other students and that we're helping each other through the class. It's a very different way of doing things from what I'm used to, but I'm enjoying it!

Before I did any reading I went through and watched the videos in the Lecture/Study material. The videos on converting units were a big help. I already know how the concept works but the memory aid of the "To/From" memo is one I'll be using from here on out, especially in problems like the example in the "Multistep Conversions" video.  "The Conservation of Mass" was a review for me and not a problem at all. The heat capacity concept was a bit trickier but the videos were quite helpful; I don't know where the "triangle" for solving the problems has been all my life, but I'm ever so happy I learned that little trick. 

To start out the week I read chapters 2 and 3 in the textbook. Chapter 2 was about measurements and problem solving, which is, to be perfectly honest, not my favorite aspect of chemistry. I'm not horrible at math but it's not my forte either. Plus I've rediscovered my difficulty with remembering the rules for significant figures in multistep math problems. I spent more time than I care to remember in the ALEKS program practicing math problems that I knew how to solve but were marked wrong because I had either rounded a significant figure when I wasn't supposed to or I hadn't rounded a significant figure when I was supposed to. Eventually I got it down, but not until my eyes were blurry.

Chapter 3 was about matter and density, which was basically a review for me. I'm going to have to work on memorizing the conversion factors for energy units; I've worked with Kelvin, joules, and Celsius scales before but they tend to fly right out of my head once I'm not using them anymore. Overall, though, the chapter wasn't a problem; I especially enjoyed the section about "Perpetual Motion", since I studied the green movement and the benefits and downsides of electric cars in a sociology class last year.

I read chapter 13 of "Uncle Tungsten" and was immediately taken back to my freshman year of college, when we read "Fabre's Book of Insects." The style is very similar... very readable, chatty almost, and very enjoyable. You forget you're reading a book about science. This particular chapter gave an overview of the development of the atomic theory. Sacks begins primarily with Dalton and his ideas about atoms; I was particularly struck by the line about how atoms' individuality gives the elements their individuality (on page 151). I also thought it was fascinating that Dalton ignored Avogadro's theory of diatomic molecules, when it solved many of the problems Dalton recognized in his own theory. Eventually Cannizzaro was able to re-present Avogadro's theory and it was accepted by the scientific community. My favorite line was at the end, in a quote rom Cannizzaro, since I think it applies to us today and really to any person attempting to educate themselves - "The mind of a person who is learning a new science, has to pass through all the phases which the science itself has exhibited in its historical evolution." (Uncle Tungsten.) We have to question, hypothesize, test, sometimes over and over again, starting from the ground up. We need to start from the most basic principles and not jump right into nuclear chemistry, or we will be hopelessly lost.

As an aside, Mr. Sacks' history of the atomic theory also gave me flashbacks to studying chemistry in college. We read works by Berthollet, Proust, Dalton, Newton, Boyle, Avogadro, Cannizzaro, and Lavoisier, so it was like seeing the names of old friends scattered through this reading. (That's not to say that I felt friendly towards said scientists while I was up til midnight desperately trying to understand what in the world they were attempting to get across.)

I did the first lab experiment a couple of days ago. It wasn't too difficult, but I did have some problems with the instructions in part 2; they weren't too clear in a couple of steps and I ended up leaving out the oil when I layered the honey, soap, water, and rubbing alcohol. I think it changed my results from what they were supposed to be, since without the oil everything else basically stayed mixed together. The liquids still layered quite nicely, though. I also really enjoyed the "Rainbow Cup" experiment where we mixed different amounts of sugar into water, dyed the water, and then layered the sugar water into a glass; my younger brothers thought it was "so cool!" The counter and my hands were very sticky from the sugar water afterwards, but what's a little stickiness in the name of science?

All in all, this week was a bit crazy and kind of overwhelming, and I still feel like I haven't settled into a groove yet. I do think I'm starting to get the hang of navigating the different sites, which is helping. We'll see whether things start to fall into place next week!