Chemistry students and parents,
The first part of our second quarter has been remarkable indeed. We’ve completed the hardest unit of the year, a flurry of new musical talent has revealed itself, and finally started digging into the atom and what’s inside it.
Thermodynamics is the most difficult and intimidating unit of the chemistry curriculum. It requires math to be used to solve difficult problems in an abstract context that most students do not have experience doing before. Some would describe education as the pursuit of perfection and that chase is never more trying than with thermodynamics.
But two students in particular didn’t seem to care about that, since they both scored 100% on their calorimetry exams. Congratulations are in order for Fernanda N. and Albert L. A whole host of other students scored in the A-range as well-so many in fact that listing them all would make this quite a lengthy post! Great job on a difficult topic, and we hope to continue that success into the coming new year.
We also had the opportunity to play some new chemistry songs in class. Writing a song about thermodynamics is really pretty challenging, but nuclear fission provided a much friendlier context. We even managed to squeeze on about electrons in there! It takes a lot of guts to speak up at all in front of your peers, but merits for bravery must be handed out to Michael M., Phil G., Will H., Jennifer G., and Amanda D., who have all risked terrible embarrassment to get up in front of the class and sing one of my chemistry songs with me. The recordings of these songs make their way onto my Youtube channel, MisterMChem, and are really great fun for the students and myself to perform. My hope is that by the end of the year we will have a whole class production for one of these songs. Not sure if we will work up that much courage though!
We’ve also completed our unit on how humans produce energy. If you’ve been following this blog, you have seen the student posts of the week updated frequently. My favorite part of this unit is the homework (And every student in the class lets out a collective cringe). Seriously though, a lot of the homework for this unit is highly enjoyable for a lot of the students because they get to continually research an energy topic they are interested in. The unit culminates in a brief paper about current issues surrounding a particular energy source, and the student products were exceptional. Be sure to ask your child to see their informative pieces on energy; I know I learned at least one thing from almost every single paper I read!
We’re finally on to the unit of atomic structure, where students delve into the mysteries of the atom. This unit consists of a lot of fun and exciting labs, where students get to light things on fire and see a wide range of colors emitted by excited electrons! I’m sure many of you have heard of this lab already (Practical Chem: you’re doing it this week!) and perhaps even seen some pictures. Students are becoming exceptional photojournalists of our lab activities in class using their phones and other mobile devices, which is great to see. They are also getting better at composing multimedia lab reports, which are among the most fun for me to read.
The holidays are upon us and that means midterms are too. Blink, and three weeks will go by and midterms will have caught you off guard-again! The best time to start studying is early and often, little by little, every day. But there must be time for a little holiday cheer in there and, no matter which way you celebrate, I hope it’s a safe, happy, and relaxing winter vacation.
Until next time,
Matt Meyers
