Reflection Blog #1

The first week and a half of chemistry have been great! I like the labs we've done, especially the one that involved working with chemical and physical changes. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to experience the second half of the lab, but the part I did get to do helped me learn a lot. I also like how the notes haven't been too crazy. There have been some, but not loads. I've learned quite a bit through the labs we're doing, and that coupled with the notes about them has helped me to learn and remember the information I need to know.

The first lab that we did involved boats and making them float. While the title always trips me up when trying to say it, it was a great reprieve from the endless amounts of syllabi and forms to be signed on the first day. Not only that, but it was a fun lab to do. It was a challenge to figure out how to make the best boat out of the cheapest items, and though my group lost, we learned a lot from the winning group as to how it was best done.

Next, we did the lab on weight and changes in mass. Things such as burning steel wool, melting ice in water, and more helped us discover that when combining two things, such as the melting ice and water, there should be no change in weight because it's only a physical change. However, when burning steel wool, it got heavier because the change is a chemical one. As it was burned, the metal oxidized, meaning that it now has the mass of both the steel wool and the oxygen atoms. The primary objective of the lab was to teach us the difference between physical and chemical changes, and it worked. I learned that an object does not gain mass if the change is only a physical one, because the change only affects the appearance of an object. However, if the change is chemical, the object can gain or lose mass because it is being changed on a molecular level. The object is the same after a physical change, but different after a chemical one.

 Kate, pictured here mixing sugar and water as part of this lab and less than enthusiastic about me photographing her. The change was a physical one.

Kate pouring the sugar.

After this lab, we did one that focused more heavily on physical and chemical changes. We held wire in  fire, burned magnesium, and mixed acids. Unfortunately, doctors appointments meant I wasn't able to be there for the acids part, but I think I was able to still get a benefit from this lab. I won't go too far into the whole physical and chemical change part, because I already did that above, but I do want to say that the wire experiment was a physical change and the magnesium was a chemical change. Since only the physical appearance of the wire was changed, it was a physical change, and since the magnesium turned to ask after being burned, it was a chemical change.