The worse movie ever - Chemistry ramblings
So I have spent this week plugging away at Chemistry in preparation for AP Chemistry this year. I hopefully will have enough students to teach the class. Here's hoping but either way, I am enjoying solving problems and *thinking* chemistry again. Not the bits and pieces, surface and extremeties but the deeper stuff. Things that make you design labs to see if your findings are true. Make you wanna challenge theoretical yields and flesh out the reasons that you will never get a 100% actual yield. Then my mind starts roaming on little labs I could do in 15 minutes in class that simply start with a calculation of theoretical yield in the class and move to a lab where the percent yield determines the grade. If you recover more than 60% of the product, you have a C, and scale it up with a percent yield of 85% or more being applaudingly an A, then scale it for over abundance of product with a down turn of the grade once they get to 95% as that is impossible to obtain in a HS lab so there is other error...
Oh but I miss my HS chemistry class. Now I realize why I didn't miss as many days...those classes were the best. I didn't fit in the study groups as well so unfortunately in AP, that scaled me for not getting the full dynamic of the class but what I learned on my own while studying was wonderful. I lost that my freshman year of college. I guess with the fight to get in the class and then being forced to relearn something I already knew because my AP score of 3 wasn't good enough kinda bummed me out. But the labs were fun...I always enjoy lab over lecture I guess. It fun to talk about the theory, but how does it work in a lab and how can that be used in every day life. Can we make it usable to the every day man?
For example, the security at the Frankfurt airport has a small piece of cloth that rub along the inside, outside and pocets of your purses, bags and other as carryon. They then put this cloth in a machine and no one is the wiser about why. I saw that machine and practically danced with glee while keeping myself from tearing over there to see what the output said about the chemicals in my bag. Oh it was heaven. Why? Because they were using a gas chromotography machine. Basically, this thing superheats what ever is on the cloth and each element or compound in it's force gaseous state leaves an imprint in the form of a graph. Very neat and quick with feedback. Even if you don't know how the machine works, you know that if you see "spike A" or "spike B" to detain the suspect for further questioning. But then my mind starts whirling even faster as they continue to check my bag. I bet that have the basic chemically wanted materials like the glycerin, excess presence of phosphates and nitrates. Even the presence of a few noble gases that are used to *damp down* the effects of harmful chemicals. The heavier ones...Helium is so not the way to go to tamp down a chemical property of another element and Xenon refuses to behave even at ideal conditions so you truly can get the weirdest results using it. I am thinking Argon moreso than...okay rambling.
But even with my brain going ten thousand miles a minute, I realize I adore Chemistry. I am never going to be anything more than a B-/C+ student but I *get* it. I am the student professors pass over when picking up on research projects because it looks like I am not capable. I know I am, if given a chance. So as I go into teaching AP this year, I hope I get a few of those students that don't look capable but they *get* it. Not the lazy, "I decided to go out with my friends for the 15th day in a row" kinda kid. I mean the one that actually attempts the homework and gets 75% there but just can't seem to make that last 25% work. I want them in my class. I want them more than the 4.0 because they will do what they do out of love and fascination, not because it seems to be the right answer and that is good enough to get me into Harvard. I guess I want students who become passionate about chemistry like me. Who swallow the strong dislike of history to explore the lives and research of Marie Curie, debates between Niels Bohr and Einstein, not for credit but just because it *is*. Who will end up enjoying what they do out of life because it is what they *want* to do.
Oh well, I started this post to tell you about the worst movie ever and instead I just talk on and on about the thing I love. As a brain break, I watched the movie Joe Dirt. That movie is up there as one of the worst ones ever, but still, it has an endearing quality to it. And David Spade. Still, one of the worst movie's ever. Back to balancing equations. If anyone can explain ligands to me in everyday terms, I'd appreciate it because I am not getting this complex thing.
Laters
Oh but I miss my HS chemistry class. Now I realize why I didn't miss as many days...those classes were the best. I didn't fit in the study groups as well so unfortunately in AP, that scaled me for not getting the full dynamic of the class but what I learned on my own while studying was wonderful. I lost that my freshman year of college. I guess with the fight to get in the class and then being forced to relearn something I already knew because my AP score of 3 wasn't good enough kinda bummed me out. But the labs were fun...I always enjoy lab over lecture I guess. It fun to talk about the theory, but how does it work in a lab and how can that be used in every day life. Can we make it usable to the every day man?
For example, the security at the Frankfurt airport has a small piece of cloth that rub along the inside, outside and pocets of your purses, bags and other as carryon. They then put this cloth in a machine and no one is the wiser about why. I saw that machine and practically danced with glee while keeping myself from tearing over there to see what the output said about the chemicals in my bag. Oh it was heaven. Why? Because they were using a gas chromotography machine. Basically, this thing superheats what ever is on the cloth and each element or compound in it's force gaseous state leaves an imprint in the form of a graph. Very neat and quick with feedback. Even if you don't know how the machine works, you know that if you see "spike A" or "spike B" to detain the suspect for further questioning. But then my mind starts whirling even faster as they continue to check my bag. I bet that have the basic chemically wanted materials like the glycerin, excess presence of phosphates and nitrates. Even the presence of a few noble gases that are used to *damp down* the effects of harmful chemicals. The heavier ones...Helium is so not the way to go to tamp down a chemical property of another element and Xenon refuses to behave even at ideal conditions so you truly can get the weirdest results using it. I am thinking Argon moreso than...okay rambling.
But even with my brain going ten thousand miles a minute, I realize I adore Chemistry. I am never going to be anything more than a B-/C+ student but I *get* it. I am the student professors pass over when picking up on research projects because it looks like I am not capable. I know I am, if given a chance. So as I go into teaching AP this year, I hope I get a few of those students that don't look capable but they *get* it. Not the lazy, "I decided to go out with my friends for the 15th day in a row" kinda kid. I mean the one that actually attempts the homework and gets 75% there but just can't seem to make that last 25% work. I want them in my class. I want them more than the 4.0 because they will do what they do out of love and fascination, not because it seems to be the right answer and that is good enough to get me into Harvard. I guess I want students who become passionate about chemistry like me. Who swallow the strong dislike of history to explore the lives and research of Marie Curie, debates between Niels Bohr and Einstein, not for credit but just because it *is*. Who will end up enjoying what they do out of life because it is what they *want* to do.
Oh well, I started this post to tell you about the worst movie ever and instead I just talk on and on about the thing I love. As a brain break, I watched the movie Joe Dirt. That movie is up there as one of the worst ones ever, but still, it has an endearing quality to it. And David Spade. Still, one of the worst movie's ever. Back to balancing equations. If anyone can explain ligands to me in everyday terms, I'd appreciate it because I am not getting this complex thing.
Laters