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!