Pre-Unit Exam

Tomorrow is the unit exam for the Atomic Structure and Radioactivity unit! I am very excited for this quiz, and cannot wait to see if it raises up my grade any. It was quicker than the last unit, and a bit easier to understand. Well, everything except some of the formulas for half lives and stuff similar to that. Once I study those formulas and some of the particles that are given off by atomic decay, I feel that I will be more than ready to succeed on this test! To help study, I used this website for half life equations!

Elements in the Stars Project.

We have a new project! The Elements in the Stars. It will be much like the last project I have done having it's own separate page and everything. We are to: Identify 15 solar bodies, include the chemical makeup of said bodies, the location in space, spectrum analysis of each body, stellar classification, and a photograph. I can't wait to begin working on this project, I love astronomy! This most likely will link back into the Atomic Structure and Radioactivity unit somehow, I'll let ya'll know when I find out.

UPDATE: Now that I've been working on the project, this awesome website really helped a ton!

Beanium Lab Post Report

The beanium lab simulates an element and its isotopes. In the lab, we had to find the average atomic mass of the elements, and the average mass for each isotope and it's % abundance. Unfortunately, I failed the pre-lab quiz that was needed to participate. However, I and the others who failed formed a group and finished the lab questions needed to get a good grade.

1st Atomic Structure and Radio Activity

My first quiz in this unit went great! It raised my grade up. Even though the unit is getting more and more complex, I feel that this strong foundation will help me throughout the rest of the unit. There was also some nomenclature questions on the quiz, I did pretty good on those too. For me, it takes time for information to really sink in. Hopefully this trend will continue throughout the quarter. I've been having trouble finding % abundance, and the ChemTeam website really helped me with it! I wish I would've studied the early atomic models too, as I also had some trouble with those.

Atomic Structure and Radioactivity Pre-test

I know I did horrible on the pre-test, but luckily, it is just that, a pre-test. It is a bench mark to see what everyone knows from the start, and to let us know what we can expect ahead. Unfortunately, the themes seem complex and maybe a bit overwhelming, but I know that I need to go the extra mile to get the grade I want in this class. Lets hope for smooth sailing this unit.

Nomenclature Unit Final Results

I initially though the nomenclature unit test was easy, but I was wrong. The grade I got was by no means super horrible, it even raised my grade up, but I wasn't happy with the score. I scheduled an appointment with my teacher and hope to go over the test in greater detail to try to get a better understanding of what went wrong. I hope that this will be just an adjustment unit and will have no more complications from
here on out.

Frontier Chemistry Post Report

To end off our nomenclature unit, we wrote a Frontier Chemistry essay. We were given a prompt, which included aliments, habitat, and supplies. We had to solve our problems using the plants in our given environment. In my case, I was in a tall grass prairie with severe sunburns and bear attack wounds. It was difficult to write at first, but luckily our chemistry teacher wrote out the exact aliments she was looking for. I was at a disadvantage, because I definitely don't have as many Tall Grass Prairie plants as I do Eastern Deciduous Forest plants. I managed to get through it though. I used about 4-5 different plants. I managed to treat skin blisters, bleeding, swelling, broken bone, dirt, and some of infection.

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(All photos on the blog taken by me!)