Apologia Chemistry: Ionic Formula Writing Lab (Module 3)

Today, the class did an exercise in ionic compound formula writing with Putting the Ions in Their Hands.  I bought the kit from Flinn Scientific years ago.  I've used this kit to teach ionic compound formulas to eighth graders, high school students--even college students. (Here is the post with the lengthy description of the activity.)

The kids use red and blue cards, cations and anions, to create ionic compounds.  I limit the amount of information I give the kids initially.  Metals form cations; nonmetals form anions.  (See the cat and ant in the photo of the board.)  Then I draw the red Al+3 card with three Cl-1 cards and fill in the first row of the data sheet from the Putting the Ions in Their Hands activity.  (I copy the ion reference sheet on to yellow card stock.) 

Initially, the kids need to build every compound.  Once they work through a few, the kids are able to write the formulas and names without the cards.  It takes longer for some kids than for others.  If one of the answers is incorrect, I have the kid use the cards to create the compound again (and again.).  Putting the Ions in Their Hands has an answer key! 

We did a quick review of conversions at the beginning of class and spent the rest of the class on the Ionic Compound activity.  Most of the kids finished.  Two remained after class to finish.  Here are the photos.

These compounds I added as a quiz to check for understanding.

Apologia Science: Equipment

Yes, I’ve been on the topic of equipment for awhile.  Goodwill has a physical science listing for a Thames and Kosmos kit.  You can see what’s in the kit—not much.  Essentially, you would be paying for the ideas and instructions.  I do buy kits—especially for a new project.  Thames and Kosmos has good kits.  This isn’t one of them.  Instead, I look at the kit contents to see which experiments are in the instructions.  Exploratorium Science Snacks has many of these same experiments.  I keep a bin with balloons, craft sticks, straws, etc. just for these simple demos.  My husband, Rob, does many of these demos in Physics.  Say, I want a Bernoulli demo?  The Exploratorium’s demo with a hairdryer is perfect.  There’s a complete explanation, too.  Be judicious when you buy a kit.


This Captain Planet Ecology Kit Air Quality is another example of a kit I would skip.  Instead, the NASA GLOBE Air Quality program has tons of learning activities.  The link is for elementary science. Start with Clouds.  GLOBE has an excellent cloud chart and protocol—detailed instructions.  See why I’m picky about kits?

Apologia Chemistry: More about equipment and chemicals

Recently, I did a post on equipment.   I use some plastic equipment, such as these small test tubes when we’re using household chemicals in small quantities.  This is the set I bought for the Kool-aid lab.  They are set aside for food labs, only.  But, if you’re heating solutions, or observing reactions, use Pyrex or borosilicate glass beakers or test tubes, such as these, which come with a cardboard test tube rack.  (I bought this set, which is a bit bigger.).   Don’t use glass tubes from a craft store.  The Pyrex or borosilicate glassware is heat resistant.

Here is a list of common household chemicals.  I order some chemicals from Home Science Tools and Amazon.  Whenever possible, I use household chemicals.  Yes, I use salt, vinegar, and baking soda; Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate), blue stone, a root killer ( copper II sulfate), acetone, ethanol and isopropyl alcohol, TUMs ( calcium carbonate), cream of tartar (potassium bitartrate), and phenol red (pool chemical).  We’ll do this household chemical lab later this month.  Take a look at all of the household chemicals.  Typically, these chemicals are not lab-grade, meaning the chemicals aren’t as pure.  I haven’t noticed a big difference.  Chemicals usually are fine for one year.  Solutions such as hydrogen peroxide or indicators, such as phenol red degrade quickly.  I buy smaller quantities of solutions and larger amounts of salts, such as Driveway heat (calcium chloride) and Epsom salts, which work for lab (and at home) for a couple years.  

Whenever I post labs, I look for labs that are affordable and use easy to procure chemicals.  Here is one more household lab.  

Apologia Chemistry: Conversions

Update: I took 15 minutes and checked all of the the answer keys for the worksheets linked.  On Unit Conversions Worksheet 1 W314, problem 5, the answer calculated is 246.06 ft. On the key, the answer is 250 ft.  The reason 250 is correct is because 75 meters has two significant digits or figures.  246.06 ft is correctly reported as 250 ft.  Note the use of scientific notation and significant figures.

Today we reviewed metric prefixes and conversions.  I like this mnemonic device for metric prefixes.  The kids have this Significant Figures Practice Worksheet, SI Units, Unit Conversions Worksheet, and this Unit Conversion Worksheet.  (Note all of these worksheets have answer keys—hopefully the keys have been edited.  I’ll check.). It’s a great deal of work.  The kids have a week to complete the math.  Their timelines are due Tuesday; they had about 30 minutes in class to start their timelines.  I wanted to be certain they understood how to set up a timeline on the graph.  Two or three kids put their timeline in the middle of the graph paper.  Their graphs will be a bit different.  I’ll try to remember to post a few examples next week.

Apologia Chemistry: Timelines

The overhead that worked YESTERDAY and did NOT today.  We did annotate the periodic tables: group names, metals and no metals, s d p f blocks, etc.  Then we did examples of conversions, sig figs, and scientific notation.  Lastly, we started the timelines.  Wooooo!  None had made timelines on graph paper previously.  Sigh.  Here is the list of elements I used and some photos.  The kids did them all a bit differently.

Elements and Scientists

https://education.jlab.org/qa/discover_ele.html

Aluminum (1825) Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851)

Argon (1894).                                                                   Sir William Ramsay (1852-1916)  Lord Raleigh (1842-1919)

Barium (1808) Sir Humphrey Davey (1778-1829)

Boron (1808) Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850)

Bromine (1826) Antoine-Jérôme Balard (1802-1876)

Calcium (1808) Sir Humphry Davy

Chlorine (1774) Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742-1786)

Fluorine (1886) Ferdinand Frederic Henri Moissan (1852-1907)

Helium (1868)

Pierre-Jules-César   Janssen (1824-1907)

Hydrogen  (1766) Henry Cavendish (1731-1810)

Iodine (1811) Barnard Courtois (1777-1838)

Lithium (1817) Johann August Arfvedson (1792-1841)

Manganese (1774) Johan Gottlieb Gahn (1745-1818)

Nickel (1751)

Axel Fredrik Cronsted (1722-1765)

Nitrogen (1772) Daniel Rutherford (1749-1819)

Oxygen (1772) Joseph Priestly (1733-1804)

Oxygen. Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794)

Phosphorus (1669) Hennig Brand (1630-1710)

Silicon (1823) Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848)

Tungsten (1781) Juan José Fausto Elhuyar (1755-1833)

How do use a blog to organize your class plans

Yes, I am blogging more frequently.  Why?  The blog is one of my chief means of organizing my thoughts and processing my lessons.  My Chemistry classes require only a bit of planning and evaluating.  I’m comfortable with Chemistry.  The Anatomy class is different.  I just completed a Human Biology class with four kids over the summer.  One student, Anna, wanted to continue.  We aren’t doing the Anatomy at the moment; instead, we are working through concentrations, osmolarity, and fluids and Electrolytes to help her in an area she finds troubling.  At the same time, I’m home-schooling Lacie in all subjects.  Anna and Angel are taking Brit Lit.  My husband, Rob, teaches Physics and Stats.  He cannot find the equipment in the basement for labs.  That’s my job.  To be honest, I do squirrel things away.  Rob loathes all forms of technology aside from his iPhone and excel.  I’m relearning Stats to help him with the TI 84 graphing calculator exercises.  The blog helps! I have another blog for Lacie and the Brit Lit.  When I report grades at the end of the year, I also reference the blogs with the photos as evidence of our studies.  Yes, I’m keeping papers and tests for Lacie.  The blog has proved to be the best way for me to keep all these disparate classes compartmentalized.

Apologia Chemistry: Module 3

Next week, we start Module 3.  This is another Module that takes forever.  First we’re doing a conductivity lab, then Putting the ions in their hands, then an ionic compounds lab.  After the kids become proficient at naming ionic compounds, we learn cover covalent molecules.  The ionic compound lab combines ionic solutions to create precipitates.  We are not learning about solubility or precipitates with this lab.  Instead, we are naming the compounds which produce a precipitate.  One time when I did this lab, a student, Hannah, wrote the names of the ions on craft sticks.  I’m going to use that idea with this class.  I’ll post pix.

Apologia Chemistry: Finally Completing Module 1

There are so many key lessons to complete initially in Chemistry.  Today, we are introducing the names of the groups of elements on the Periodic Table, reviewing conversions, significant figures, and scientific notation, and creating timelines of scientists who discovered various elements.    The kids have a week to complete the sig fig, sci not, and conversion exercises.  I’ll post examples of the timeline.  Next, the kids are going to learn how to name ionic compounds—Module 3.  We’ll do Module 2 in the spring when we do Gas Laws.

BTW, we are doing an electrical conductivity lab next week.  I bought these conductivity probes.  Yesterday, Anna, my Anatomy student, tested them for me.  I’m going to set up several solutions: vinegar, citric acid, ammonia, saline solution, dextrose solution, acetone, alcohol, and water.  The Chemistry class will make a data table and use the conductivity probes to determine which solutions conduct and which do not.  I’ll have them begin with distilled water, which should be low.  Ionic compounds are conductive and covalent or molecular compounds do not conduct.  We’ll see if this lab helps.  If not, it’s fun to play with a new toy.

Yes, you can make your own conductivity meter. (Film cartridges are becoming harder to find. I ordered a set for another lab.  eBay?  Amazon?). These instructions from the Exploratorium for a conductivity meter require a craft stick, tape, 9V battery, and Christmas lights.  I was too lazy to make my meters. (We donated our huge tangles box of Christmas tree lights and bought a prelit tree.). I’ll post the pix.

Apologia Science: Videotape your lessons.

This morning, two students came by to film graphing exercises for my husband's Stat class.  I like to have the kids video their lessons.  Today, Andrew spent a little time with the View Screen.  This presentation device connects to a TI 84 graphing calculator and rests on top of an overhead projector.  Then, Andrew reviewed the problems and did a practice video or two.  His sister videoed with my iPad.  I have a You-tube channel.  (The easiest way to load videos is through the iPad You-tube app.  I learned this the hard way.  I tried to load the video directly from iPad to You-tube.  It does not work at all.)  The kids who teach the lesson learn the material.  Kids tend to do a great job with the videos because the videos are posted to You-tube.  One of the videos is posted below with a photo of the kids making the video.

Human Biology: Concentration Units

Anna did a few labs again today.  First, new conductivity testers arrived.  Anna retested several ionic and covalent liquids with the new conductivity probes: vinegar, distilled water, tap water, acetone, alcohol, citric acid, etc.  I'm going to do a similar lab with my Chemistry class to learn about ionic and covalent molecules.

Then, I had Anna make several solutions of NaCl at different concentrations.  This takes practice.  We reviewed molarity and mentioned osmolarity.  Anna wants to go into nursing or some type of medicine.  I find it helps to make solutions to understand concentration units.

Next time, we're doing osmosis and diffusion labs with potatoes, sweet potatoes, cornstarch, and iodine.

This nursing textbook on Fluids and Electrolytes is an older edition available free online.  Anna is completing the first chapter as homework next week.  In the first chapter is quite a bit of information on osmosis.  I'm working on Chapter 2 which has more on hypertonic, hypotonic, and isotonic solutions, also called hyper-osmolaric, hypo-osmolaric, and iso-osmolaric. 

Anna is most concerned about the cellular and chemical aspects of nursing.  I know she'll be more confident once she works through this textbook.  BTW, the answers to all of the questions are on the left-hand side of each set of questions.  Moreover, the book contains detailed charts and tables for reference as one works through the book's questions. 

If you decide to work through the book, do a complete chapter at a time.  It takes about two hours.  If you struggle for two hours and complete the chapter, the material makes more sense.

Apologia Chemistry: Kool-aid and Reaction in a Bag

Today, the kids completed their Kool-aid calculations, remitted their bowling quiz, made a dixie cup of Kool-aid, and did the Reaction in a Bag lab.  Zach's mom, Sarah, watched the kids do their Kool-aid calculations while I helped my husband, Rob, do TI84 calculations with Stats.

Then, we did the Reaction in a Bag.  The kids first experiment with the calcium chloride, baking soda or sodium bicarbonate, and phenol red.  Then, the kids mix the three in a bag.  I have them double-bag the chemicals to reduce spills. 

The purpose is to learn how to make observations.  For example, calcium chloride is warm or exothermic in water or a phenol red solution.  Hence the name, Driveway Heat. 

Writing observations may seem obvious; it's not.  Which chemical combines with phenol red and turns bright pink?  deep yellow?  produces heat?  All in all, a very successful class.