Ready for more fun and games? Try this battleship game and balance reaction equations.
Can you classify matter?
Test your general chemistry knowledge.
More Study Games
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Category Archives: The Physical Sciences
Chemistry — Nothing But Games
So would you like to play a few games?
Do you know your elements? Try this game — matching 40 different elements to their symbols.
Let’s try one a little harder — common chemical names.
One last game — this one on atomic structure.
Elements, Compounds and Mixtures
Wow, a lot of notes and information in class. Just in case you missed some of it here is the Power Point presentation on mixtures, elements and compounds.
Use this link to play a game and test your understanding.
Moving on to Chemistry
You’ve spent a couple of weeks studying global climate change and some pretty high-level science, including the IPCC report I showed in class. You should have some good notes from class including the drawings and table of greenhouse gases. In addition last Friday we did a summary and I provided you with a long list of web resources.
Be sure you are studying for your test on Friday and complete your poster project due 4/11.
Now we have begun our study of chemistry. A little introduction last week with a video and a fun Hershey Kiss lab today. Remember the lab write-up is due Thursday. Tomorrow we’ll take a closer look at atoms and the periodic table.
Grade reports will be sent home with you tomorrow.
Ice Cream Lab
I hope you enjoyed making and eating your ice cream on Friday — I keep telling you science is fun!
- Have you figured out how heat was used? Remember that heat is the movement of thermal energy.
- Besides the changes in temperature what other observations did you make? Do you recall taking any notes that might relate to your observations?
- What was the purpose of the salt?
- Can you draw a picture showing the flow of thermal energy in your experiment?
- Were there any anomalies (unexpected results)? What might have caused them?
Out Of Your Comfort Zone
Some of you are feeling really uncomfortable right about now; not sure what you should be doing with your lab, maybe a bit confused or frustrated. Believe it or not, those are good things. It means you care about doing this right, getting a good grade and maybe even learning something! It’s called taking you out of your “comfort zone” and it’s the place where some real learning can happen.
In this lab you were to examine mechanical advantage using a simple machine called an incline plane. That means you were going to investigate, experiment and play with an inclined plane to see if changing it in someway had an affect on this thing called mechanical advantage.
Our approach was to start with things we already knew. Some of this came from notes on work, and ideal and actual mechanical advantage. Other things came from prior labs where we used an incline plane and/or where we measured different forces. This gave us some ideas on how we might conduct an experiment.
Next was to do some background research. This is where you go exploring. Look information up in your textbooks, other classroom resources and the internet. The more you know about incline planes, ideal and actual mechanical advantage, work and efficiency the better. Part of your research should also have included “playing” with the equipment — doing some testing to see what happens and how to best set it up.
Out of this comes your experimental design, how you will conduct the experiment, what you will measure, and your hypothesis. Skimping on the research and design results in poor quality and wasted work. Planning is very important.
Now you are collecting the data and calculating various things like work, mechanical advantage and efficiency. You’re also making graphs, drawing conclusions, looking for patterns and making comparisons.
Some of you are doing an excellent job — keeping up with your classwork and doing some extra at home. It pays off by giving you some time to discuss your findings with me and confirm that you have done the write-up properly.
Keep up the good work. There is more pleasure in succeeding at something that is difficult than there is when you take the easy route.