To start off, Andrew explained what a chemical reaction was. His definition was that a chemical reaction is where a change in matter where the atoms in one or more substances combine separate or rearranging to form new things. He told us that these combustion reactions actually power things all over the world, that these things somehow make the energy we need.
He explained that molecules are made with the combination of elements/atoms. However, these combine when the amount of both make a full shell of electrons. Andrew showed us a diagram in where there was the nucleus, which was the ball, and energy levels, which were these rings around the nucleus, and lastly the could be a combo of more than two electrons which where dots on the energy levels.
He showed us an example, water, and told us why it is written as H2O. I realized this was because oxygen has 6 electrons and needed two more to complete the outer shell, so we needed two more atoms of hydrogen where each of these atoms has 1 electron, so that would complete the shell.
As for the experiment itself, we coiled up magnesium and put it in vials of citric acid mixed with water. Once we did that, we found that the vial created heat and at the same time, the balloon that we put on top of the vial started filling up. I think this is because the magnesium made a chemical reaction with the citric acid and made it boil up, and that heat was the activation energy that released the gas and filled the balloon.
At the end, I felt that this project was very useful. We will be making motors in this class, so I feel learning about chemical reactions and things like this will definitely be useful because chemical reactions also occur during the motor. I felt the way Andrew explained the terms went really well, I found it relatively easy to take notes along the way. I also found it enjoyable how we got to actually take part in the experiment, instead of just having the teachers do the experiment. Overall, while I originally only did the activity to potentially get 50 points, I found it very enjoyable and informative.