Rollercoaster Month

This past month has been a roller-coaster blur and did not lend itself to a "normal" schedule.  I have not had the opportunity to post this month.  So what's the problem??

• Storm Alfred knocking out power for a week. I had to move my family in with my parents...there is a reason I moved out!
• Professional Development - no school for students. (No period 3 or 8 classes)
• Veterans Day - no school for all. No period (1, 3, or 5 classes)
• Thanksgiving Day break.

Some classes met with some frequency and others did not especially when you consider the weekends.   

Also...the school calendar has changed again.

I plan on updating for classes this week later.  Thanks.

Announcements & Information

• The administration has defined the end of Quarter 1 as Tuesday, November 15th.
• Grades are due by midnight Sunday, November 20th.
• Report cards will be printed and distributed around Thanksgiving break. Not sure if they will be there before or after Thanksgiving day.

Food for thought: If you have a computer and printer at home for your son/daughter to use for school work try to be proactive and be certain that there is an ample supply of paper and additional ink cartridges.

What's a few degrees???

Well...it's the difference between rain and snow...school and no school...power and no power.

I hope everyone is doing well.  Like Wethersfield, East Hartford is in the dark...house was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit so I moved the family to Danbury to my parents house. 

Hope things improve quickly.

The first quarter ends on Friday...I think.

Period 5: Announcement - Quiz

A quiz on the Bohr atom and the Quantum Mechanical atom is scheduled for Period 5 tomorrow the 27th. 

This will be a summative quiz on the two modern models of the atom.  Topics addressed are foundational differences in these two models from the previous models of the atom studied.  It also focuses on the way in which electrons are patterned in an atom in terms of energy and position.  The quiz will focus on the work done in class and also chapters 2 and 7 of the textbook.

Another aspect of this quiz is that the students were given a non-graded "pre-test" on a few of these topics.  In an effort to assess my instruction for this unit, I have put these same questions on this quiz.  My hope is to evaluate the instruction and learning through this.  This was a recommended goal from the administration for this year as part of our evaluation process.

Active Chemistry & Community: Periods 1 and 8

Active Chemistry & Communitywill be finishing Chapter 1 of the text book by the end of next week.  There is a major graded assignments that will be due at that time. 

The Chapter Challenge Project:  Since the beginning of the chapter the student were asked to write a short script for a scene in a movie/show.  In that scene there should be a special effect of some sort.  The students get to choose the special effect and be the creative geniuses they are.  Two weeks ago a rough draft was handed in.  Last week a rubric of the areas of grading was handed out and should be a guide for crafting their final project. This week a period will be dedicated for time in the media center for the students to pool their work together and finalize thoughts.  The project will be due on the last day the class meets next week.

Period 3: Quiz!

A quiz on the Bohr atom and the Quantum Mechanical atom is scheduled for Period 3 tomorrow the 25th.  This will be a summative quiz on the two modern models of the atom.  Topics addressed are foundational differences in these two models from the previous models of the atom studied.  It also focuses on the way in which electrons are patterned in an atom in terms of energy and position.  The quiz will focus on the work done in class and also chapters 2 and 7 of the textbook.

Another aspect of this quiz is that the students were given a non-graded "pre-test" on a few of these topics.  In an effort to assess my instruction for this unit, I have put these same questions on this quiz.  My hope is to evaluate the instruction and learning through this.  This was a recommended goal from the administration for this year as part of our evaluation process.

  

Happy Mole Day!

Today is a day of celebration for chemistry folks called mole day.  The mole is a very specific number in chemistry and it is how chemists count and bundle atoms and molecules.

How many in a mole?  There are 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 particles.  Normally we try to write it like this 6.02 X 10²³.

For perspective:

• There is a one mole of water molecules in about 2 tablespoons.

• One mole of copy paper would stretch from the earth to the sun over a million times.

• One mole of pennies would fill in the all the space between the earth and the moon's orbit in stacks of 400 pennies.

• One mole of pennies would be enough to give everyone on the face of the earth about 1 trillion dollars.

Sometimes we forget how small atoms and molecules are.  Hopefully this puts atomic size into perspective

Happy Mole Day!