Factors Affecting Chemical Reactions

Please click on the audio file above to listen to this blog.


Good morning,


I apologize for not being here! I am at a conference in Vancouver called Crosscurrents.  I have to go to school every once in a while too!


Super congrats to all of you that took the last test.  The average was higher than a C+ so I do owe you a party. Unfortunately it will have to wait until after spring break. 

Back to science!


So you remember that chemical reaction you did with hydrogen peroxide and yeast?? The one that foamed like crazy?  Well we are going to learn about why that happened today.  This section starts on page 113 of your workbooks. Open it now. Do it!


So a reaction can happen slowly or quickly. How fast this happens is called the Rate of Reaction.  A rate explains how slow or fast a change occurs.


There are some things that can change the RATE, or how fast or slow something happens.


1.Temperature.  

Just like when you are sloth like in the early, cold morning, atoms and molecules move around slowly when cold.  This means that they take more time to bump into each other and it takes longer for reactions to occur.  On the other hand, when molecules are HOT, they race around, bumping into each quickly, making reactions happen FAST!  Watch this:




Pretty cool eh!? I tried to find some glow sticks but couldn't so this will have to do.  

In short, reactions happen fast when hot, slow when cold. REMEMBER THIS!!

2. Concentration

You know when you make orange juice from the frozen containers and how delicious it is all depends on how much water you put in?  If you are like me then you put very little water in so it does not taste bland.  The amount of orange juice you put in for a set amount of water is called: CONCENTRATION.


Reactions happen faster with higher concentration (less water and more orange juice!) Check this out:




Hey, you remember doing the first part of that experiment?? Unfortunately we don't have 30% hydrogen peroxide to make the cool stuff.  We are going to order some this summer so if you want to see the demo next year I will let you know when it happens.  

So remember this: The higher the concentration, the faster the reaction. Got it? Good.

3. Surface Area
 This is a measure of how much area is exposed on an object.  Let's take a sugar for example.  A sugar cube has a much smaller surface area than the same amount of loose sugar grains.  Check out this cheezy video.




4. Catalysts

Remember adding yeast to the hydrogen peroxide to make it bubble? A bunch of you asked what the yeast was for.  Well, here is your answer. The yeast was a CATALYST.  This is a substance that speeds up the rate of a reaction.  It is not actually used up in the reaction.  Another example of a catalyst would be enzymes in our bodies.

Now for the fun stuff.  You should already be working on Workbook pages:  105-111. Now in addition, I want you to work up to Page 119.  

Workbook pages 105-119.  I am going to really focus on pages 111 and 119.

Have a great spring break and be safe!!!

Test on Tuesday

Hello folks,

We are having a test tomorrow on: Acids/bases, Salts and Organic Chemistry.  Today will be review. Study hard tonight and you will do great!!

Acids and Bases

Howdy Folks,

I hope you y'all had a great weekend!! 

Remember that awesome time we had on Friday?! Well, we are going to learn all about what is happening at the molecular level when you saw those cool colour changes.  Here is a video refresher on various items on the pH scale.




The big picture is to remember that:

• Acids produce hydrogen ion (H+)
• Bases produce hydroxide ions (OH-)
• pH is a number scale of how acidic or basic something is.
• 7 is neutral
• Lower than 7 is acidic 
• Higher than 7 is basic

• In order to measure pH of a solution we use pH indicators
• Examples include, litmus paper, phenolphthalein, bromothymol blue, indigo carmine, methyl orange, and methyl red.

• We can also use a digital pH meter to measure pH. I will demonstrate this!

Now we need to figure out how we name acids and bases. Here are a few rules.

1. Acids usually start with H (hydrogen). Example, HCl
2. Bases usually have OH (hydroxide) on the right side of the formula.

 Here are few catchy tunes!!






If you would like to review some more about acids and bases, please go the Brain Pops site here:  Brainpops

Have fun!!

Lab Day!

Good morning everyone!

It is Friday! Today we are going to have some fun and work on a lab looking at  acids and bases.  We have acids and bases all around us in our houses, school and in the store.  Today you get to find out what they are.

If you miss today, no worries. You can make the lab up by seeing me and staying after school for 30 minutes to do it.  Be sure to wear your safety glasses, be careful with glassware and the most important thing of all----clean up when you are done. This includes washing your dishes!!!

New Test Date

Reminder that the test has been moved to Thursday!

Chapter 4 Review

Good morning,


Today we begin the review for Chapter 4. This was a large and complex chapter. Don't worry though, we are going to take it one step at a time and you will be well prepared for the test.


Speaking of the test. It will be this Wednesday. That means we have 2 full days to prepare for it.


All right let's begin.


Step One: We have to go back to Atomic Theory. Yes the whole neutron, electron, proton thing. Here is Bill to explain it


All right, does that ring a bell?


Moving on to the periodic table.
Here is a cool one


Now that we are refreshed with the periodic table, we need to move on to Bohr diagrams....yes I know you all probably call them "boring" diagrams. It is actually a good way visualize the arrangement of electrons.


Let's try it out.


Now on to Ionic and Covalent Bonding


Remember Ionic ----- Usually a METAL bonding to a NON metal. Here, one element gives up the electron and the other element takes it.


Covalent---Sharing of electrons. This involves NON metals.


Now Lewis diagrams.


Remember those dots around the element?

These are the number of electrons in the OUTER or VALENCE shell. Remember that an element is happiest with a full shell, meaning 8 electrons for most elements.


Remember these? Diatomic Elements. Think of it as a "7" plus hydrogen of course.....

Next UP!!--------Naming Compounds.


First lets start with IONIC compounds.


The first part of the name is ALWAYS a METAL!  Take for example Potassium Iodide.

Potassium is a metal---and therefore it is named first.

Iodine is not a metal and therefore comes second in the naming.  You ALWAYS put an "ide" at the end of the name. So it wouldn't be Potassium Iodine but rather Potassium Iodide. Makes sense? Good. Let's now try a few.......

NaCl      MgBr2        AgI       RbF
 Notice that the first element is always a metal and the second is a non-metal. Fun stuff!!




Next up is COVALENT compounds


These involve NON metals


Remember that you name covalent compounds using prefixes such as (Bi, Tri, Di, etc...)


Lastly, we need to review chemical equations.  We will do a few on the board and using the link posted earlier.

Chemical Equations Continued

Howdy folks!

While you continue to work on your workbooks (pages 77-80), I wanted to show you a few cool videos to illustrate some processes of chemical reactions.

Liquid Solid and Gas video.


And Song


Some funny Bill Nye cooking!


A sweet song about chemical reactions


Here is another chemical reaction balancing game!

GAME

Chemical Equations--how to begin.

Howdy!

We are now going to begin learning how to actually create chemical equations. Think of it like baking chocolate chip cookies.  You begin with the ingredients:

---Butter
---Flour
---Sugar
---Eggs
---Chocolate Chips

Remember that we can call these the REACTANTS.

By themselves all of these ingredients are rather boring right!? (Except for the chocolate chips of course)
But....once you mix them up and add a bit of heat, suddenly you get some deliciousness called cookies.  The cookies that we create would be considered the PRODUCTS

Now unless you have been making cookies for a VERY long time you still need a list of the steps to make it, the recipe.  In science terms we call this the CHEMICAL EQUATION 

When the dough is in the oven, the changes that take place (cooking) that turn the dough into cookies can be thought of as the CHEMICAL REACTION.

Enough with the cookies...it is making me hungry.  On with the science!!!

When two or more elements or molecules (lets use Nitrogen (N) and Oxygen (O) as our examples), mix and change into something else, we call this the CHEMICAL REACTION.

The way in which they mix is called the CHEMICAL EQUATION.

We can write the chemical equation with symbols or words.  With our example it looks like this

With WORDS:     nitrogen monoxide + oxygen  -->  nitrogen dioxide

In SYMBOLS:     2NO (g)   +   O2 (g)    -->  2NO2 (g)

Whooo...Take a deep breath. That is a lot of stuff going on.  One step at a time.  With the symbol equation the (g) means that the (NO and O2) is in a gas form. There are other symbols such as (l) meaning liquid, and (s) for solid.

Second.  A reaction took place here.  We combine two gasses (nitrogen monoxide and oxygen) together, say in a jar, and a CHEMICAL REACTION took place, creating a whole new gas called nitrogen dioxide.

This new gas is actually an air pollutant which is a big part of smog in cities.  Blech.

Alright. So you can see that there are large and small numbers next to the element or compounds in the equation above.

You should already be familiar with the small number, say in O2
To refresh your memory, the 2 refers to the number of oxygen atoms in the molecule.

The big numbers say in 2NO (g) refers to the number of molecules involved in the reaction.  So there are 2 N and 2 O.

When balancing equations you need to remember that how many letters you have on one side, you must have the same on the other.

Let's take a moment and see how it is done!


Here is another version taught by a teacher.  Have a look.


So this is what you are going to do now.  Please go to the link below and practice balancing equations. Be sure to start easy and work your way up.


Balancing Equation Game!

If you don't have access to a computer right now, go to your workbook and work on page 77. Be sure to read the rules on page 76 first though...

You need to work on this for today (Monday) and tomorrow (Tuesday).

Have fun!

Chemical Equations--crazy words.

Before we begin, I need to remind you to please hand in your folders to the substitute teacher so that Ms. Rutledge can mark  the remaining work in it. Thanks!

Also, if you have not yet seen the introduction blog please scroll down and read/listen to the introduction and the reason for me not being here.


OK, on with the science.  We are starting on Chemical Reactions. Stuff that goes boom. Mostly. Sometimes things do the opposite and get cold....think about those ice packs that you squeeze to make cold. Simply a chemical reaction that uses energy rather than giving off energy.

If you are interested in knowing where this is in the book it starts on Page 202 (Unit 4.3)

Here is how our friend Bill Nye explains it.




Pretty cool eh!?

Now we are going to bring up an old friend of yours that we need to keep around

The periodic table. It is going to be important that we get more comfortable using this table. I just posted this to remind you what it looks like. hehe.


This clip is by a pretty cool band called, They Might Be Giants.





So just like learning Heiltsuk, Science has it's own language that can be difficult to learn. As long as we practice, take our time and believe that you can do it, it should be no problem at all!

Next up I want you to make some flash cards for the following terms:

- Balanced Chemical Equation
- Chemical Equation
- Chemical Reaction
- Conservation of Mass
- Products
- Reactants
- Skeleton Equation
- Symbolic Equation

On these flash cards I want you to make them like the following:

On the FRONT:


On the BACK:
And if you think that flash cards are silly, check this video out. Even brain surgeons who have peoples lives in their hands use flashcards. So there.



I will be checking your flash cards and giving marks. Please be creative, colorful, whatever you need to help make them useful. Use a rubber band to keep them together and hand the stack in at the end of class.

REMEMBER TO PUT YOUR NAME ON THEM!!!!

Welcome to Science 10

(If you want to hear ME read this rather than read it, click the play button!)


Howdy folks!

I apologize that I am not able to be here for the first 3 days of the new semester! We can blame it on the darn ferry schedule. While some of you are headed north to watch basketball, I am headed south to get some skiing in! Both of these activities (skiing and basketball) go so well with the motion unit we will study later in this course. More on that later on....

Science. Science is incredible. Science is fascinating. Science is able to explain so much of our world. Science allows you to read this on the computer screen. I love science. I hope you can too.

So let's get started!


This blog will be used frequently to show video clips, cool articles and other sciency(is that a word?) stuff. So...please bookmark it on your Itouch, laptop, or other computer.