Chemistry
Chlorine Essay
This was a mini project we did. We were assigned an element and the essential question was "What would happen if this element disappeared?"
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Polymer Plastics Lesson |
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My science lesson was about plastics, what they are made of, the pollution, and the history of it. The experiment was to cut the aluminum off a CD, heat the plastic underneath, and blow. It creates this really tripy looking bubble, and it's still made of plastic.
I thought that the pollution was the most interesting. I never realized how bad it is, and it constantly grows everyday. Luckily, we are building recycling plants in an attempt to reuse used plastic. We also have these enormous patches of garbage in the ocean just filled with plastic. These patches grow everyday and its toxic to the environment around it. Animals eat it, and they die. If the animal eats it and survives, we eventually ingest it thus ingesting the toxic plastic. Gross. We also bury our plastic into the earth which means the chemicals from the plastic get in our ground water, and we drink that ground water. There are volunteer groups that go out and clean plastic from the ocean and land, but it's not enough to save the planet. All countries dispose of something in the ocean. For America it's plastic and for other countries, it's sewage.
Challenges I had was the CD not working, making the presentation, presenting, and filling out all the papers before we even decided our experiment. I don't remember it being that stressful, but some of it was challenging. Teaching the lesson to the class was easy, nobody seemed to be disrespectful. The only thing that went wrong was the experiment.
5 Concepts
1. Phase Changes
-Science: The science of phase change has to do with matter in different states such as a gas, liquid, or solid. These phases can be changed due to temperature and/or pressure
-Interesting concepts: Interesting concepts of phase change is that the particles vibrate less or more depending on what state they are in. Some elements don't have the ability to undergo all phase changes at the same temperatures. Elements are also different states at room temperature. Most are solid, some are liquid, and rare ones are gas. With dry ice, its a gas at room temperature, but water is liquid at room temperature.
-Challenging: The challenging part was to not touch the dry ice and get burned. We also had a hard time making the big soap bubble. It was still really fun playing with it though. It wasn't much of a challenge except for the paperwork.
-Science: The science of phase change has to do with matter in different states such as a gas, liquid, or solid. These phases can be changed due to temperature and/or pressure
-Interesting concepts: Interesting concepts of phase change is that the particles vibrate less or more depending on what state they are in. Some elements don't have the ability to undergo all phase changes at the same temperatures. Elements are also different states at room temperature. Most are solid, some are liquid, and rare ones are gas. With dry ice, its a gas at room temperature, but water is liquid at room temperature.
-Challenging: The challenging part was to not touch the dry ice and get burned. We also had a hard time making the big soap bubble. It was still really fun playing with it though. It wasn't much of a challenge except for the paperwork.
2. Hydrophobia and Hydrophilic
-Science: Objects on the electronegativity scale are either polar, or non polar. Non polar items usually don't like water and therefore wont dissolve in it. Non polar items aren't like water. That is where the term "like dissolves like" comes from. An example would be styrofoam. Because styrofoam is non polar, it doesn't like water, which means its hydrophobic. Styrofoam will only dissolve in acetone, because acetone in non polar as well. Something that will dissolve in water is sugar or lettuce. These things are like water which makes them polar. This makes them hydrophilic
-Interesting concepts: I think that the capsaicin was the coolest part of learning this. When we eat spicy food, spiciness doesn't exist. The bond of the molecules stimulates pain and burning. When we put water on it, it didn't help, but when we put peanut butter, the pain goes away. This means capsaicin is non polar
-Challenging: There wasn't anything too challenging about this, but it was really fun to learn.
-Science: Objects on the electronegativity scale are either polar, or non polar. Non polar items usually don't like water and therefore wont dissolve in it. Non polar items aren't like water. That is where the term "like dissolves like" comes from. An example would be styrofoam. Because styrofoam is non polar, it doesn't like water, which means its hydrophobic. Styrofoam will only dissolve in acetone, because acetone in non polar as well. Something that will dissolve in water is sugar or lettuce. These things are like water which makes them polar. This makes them hydrophilic
-Interesting concepts: I think that the capsaicin was the coolest part of learning this. When we eat spicy food, spiciness doesn't exist. The bond of the molecules stimulates pain and burning. When we put water on it, it didn't help, but when we put peanut butter, the pain goes away. This means capsaicin is non polar
-Challenging: There wasn't anything too challenging about this, but it was really fun to learn.
3. Acids and Bases
-Science: Only liquids can be recorded as an acid or a base. When its an acid, its ph. When its a base, its OH-. The perfect union means it's in the center of a scale.
-Interesting Concepts: It's surprising that only liquids can be recorded on their ph level. It's also surprising to find out which liquids are acids and bases. It's surprising that milk is an acid, and bleach is a base. Most cleaning supplies are bases while most edible foods are acids. Lemon juice, apple juice, milk, vinegar, and other things are examples of acids. Drain cleaner, soap, borax, bleach, and ammonia are examples of bases.
-Challenging: Again, nothing was too challenging but we kept spilling the liquids everywhere. It was also hard recording everything. Paperwork in general is not easy for me to complete, especially if its dta
-Science: Only liquids can be recorded as an acid or a base. When its an acid, its ph. When its a base, its OH-. The perfect union means it's in the center of a scale.
-Interesting Concepts: It's surprising that only liquids can be recorded on their ph level. It's also surprising to find out which liquids are acids and bases. It's surprising that milk is an acid, and bleach is a base. Most cleaning supplies are bases while most edible foods are acids. Lemon juice, apple juice, milk, vinegar, and other things are examples of acids. Drain cleaner, soap, borax, bleach, and ammonia are examples of bases.
-Challenging: Again, nothing was too challenging but we kept spilling the liquids everywhere. It was also hard recording everything. Paperwork in general is not easy for me to complete, especially if its dta
4. Recycled Wastewater
- Science: The water we flush down the toilet, shower, and sink is reused for drinking water. California is in a water crisis because it's so dry. Instead of putting the clean water back in the ocean, we've made these plants to clean the water and put it back into where we drink (fountains, water bottles, hoses, etc...). Most people are disgusted by this, but its saving our water because it's slowly disappearing.
-Interesting Concepts: America is one of the few countries that really treats our sewage and drinking water. Other countries abuse this because they don't have enough money to treat it. Most don't have clean drinking water at all. We discussed how in the future, we could possibly go to war because of the lack of clean water.
-Challenging: For the third time, nothing was really challenging researching this topic. Sometimes it's difficult finding reliable sources. This was a fun thing to learn though.
- Science: The water we flush down the toilet, shower, and sink is reused for drinking water. California is in a water crisis because it's so dry. Instead of putting the clean water back in the ocean, we've made these plants to clean the water and put it back into where we drink (fountains, water bottles, hoses, etc...). Most people are disgusted by this, but its saving our water because it's slowly disappearing.
-Interesting Concepts: America is one of the few countries that really treats our sewage and drinking water. Other countries abuse this because they don't have enough money to treat it. Most don't have clean drinking water at all. We discussed how in the future, we could possibly go to war because of the lack of clean water.
-Challenging: For the third time, nothing was really challenging researching this topic. Sometimes it's difficult finding reliable sources. This was a fun thing to learn though.
5. Alternative Medicine
-Science: In our world, there are many types of medicine used to cure many things. The 3 types is alternative, western, and 1 other. Alternative is one used with herbs and relaxation of the mind. There is no actual medication but its a healthy way to treat symptom without side effects. Western is the use of chemicals and harsh pills, scanning, and things you would see at a regular doctors office. This is a more efficient way to ensure the sickness is treated, but it may have bad side effects.
-Interesting Concepts: America is known for western medicine, but other countries such as japan use alternative medicine. It's much better in my opinion, we watched a documentary of the oldest person, and she lived a very healthy life of being happy, moving, and using alternative medicine.
-Challenging: Last time, there was nothing too challenging except for the research. There were many types of medicine and it was hard finding the accurate information for all of them but it was a fun thing to do.
-Science: In our world, there are many types of medicine used to cure many things. The 3 types is alternative, western, and 1 other. Alternative is one used with herbs and relaxation of the mind. There is no actual medication but its a healthy way to treat symptom without side effects. Western is the use of chemicals and harsh pills, scanning, and things you would see at a regular doctors office. This is a more efficient way to ensure the sickness is treated, but it may have bad side effects.
-Interesting Concepts: America is known for western medicine, but other countries such as japan use alternative medicine. It's much better in my opinion, we watched a documentary of the oldest person, and she lived a very healthy life of being happy, moving, and using alternative medicine.
-Challenging: Last time, there was nothing too challenging except for the research. There were many types of medicine and it was hard finding the accurate information for all of them but it was a fun thing to do.