Today, we had a lab experiment in where we had a little introduction to earth sciences. In this intro, we would learn about what the Earth was made of and make our own chemical reactions as well. To start off, Andrew told us about what the Earth was made of. He explained that in the very middle was the core, which was made of solid iron. Next, came the outer core, made of liquid iron. Following the outer core was the mantle, made of molten rocks and last was the crust, made from solidified mantle.
Next, we took a closer look at the table of elements and he told us how we can find out whether or not two elements will have a chemical reaction or not. The way we find this out is called electronecativity. He explained that this was used to describe how easy it is for the electron to take away from the right side. To explain this, he drew a line through the table of elements, going up diagonally to the right. He said that the further elements are from each other in accordance to the table of elements, the more they react.
After, we got on to the lab portion of this lesson. He told us that we were going to put some substances in vials of sodium silicate and calcium chloride. He explained to us that these substances wouldn't dissolve in the vials because they were aqueous, meaning that they couldn't dissolve in water. Next, he put 4 different substances in 4 vials. We found that the first one formed a white crystal of a sort, and the next two seemed to be the same substance, and formed pretty quickly as with the first one. However, by far the longest was the last one, which resulted in a blue substance. We found that all of the substances dragged down at first, then expanded to the top. However, the substances that expanded the most were the blue one and the two identical ones that were purple/blue in color.
Overall, it was an alright lab experiment. I felt that the combustion one was cooler, but this one was pretty interesting as well. What caught my interest was the talk of chemical reactions and actually seeing the substances form into crystals over time. I feel we did this lab to get more of a feel for what's around us in this planet, and to get to know what the planet itself is actually made of. Also, this served to tell us a bit more about how chemical reactions work, which I feel will prove to come in handy in the future as this is a chemistry class.
Next, we took a closer look at the table of elements and he told us how we can find out whether or not two elements will have a chemical reaction or not. The way we find this out is called electronecativity. He explained that this was used to describe how easy it is for the electron to take away from the right side. To explain this, he drew a line through the table of elements, going up diagonally to the right. He said that the further elements are from each other in accordance to the table of elements, the more they react.
After, we got on to the lab portion of this lesson. He told us that we were going to put some substances in vials of sodium silicate and calcium chloride. He explained to us that these substances wouldn't dissolve in the vials because they were aqueous, meaning that they couldn't dissolve in water. Next, he put 4 different substances in 4 vials. We found that the first one formed a white crystal of a sort, and the next two seemed to be the same substance, and formed pretty quickly as with the first one. However, by far the longest was the last one, which resulted in a blue substance. We found that all of the substances dragged down at first, then expanded to the top. However, the substances that expanded the most were the blue one and the two identical ones that were purple/blue in color.
Overall, it was an alright lab experiment. I felt that the combustion one was cooler, but this one was pretty interesting as well. What caught my interest was the talk of chemical reactions and actually seeing the substances form into crystals over time. I feel we did this lab to get more of a feel for what's around us in this planet, and to get to know what the planet itself is actually made of. Also, this served to tell us a bit more about how chemical reactions work, which I feel will prove to come in handy in the future as this is a chemistry class.