Charity Fair Project Blog 12-13-17

      For this year's charity fair, I chose to do the charity All Together Now, a charity that deals with racism. We began the work to do in History class, where we did background research on the charity we chose. In the researching part, I discovered that All Together Now is trying to stop racism in schools, sports, businesses, and everywhere else. Scrolling through the website, I also learned that some of the employees of All Together Now have experienced racism at least once because of the cultural clothes they were wearing or the color of their skin. Then we had to choose a product to make that relates to the topic we are trying to cover. We would make the product and sell it at the charity fair to earn money for our charity. My group chose to make rainbow cupcakes to support All Together Now. Then we needed to find out the cost and profit for our cupcakes. This was a little difficult, since we needed to find out the cost for each ingredient, and then the cost to make one cake, 5, 10, and 100. Then we had to find the profit, and, using that knowledge, we would have to find out how many cakes we have to sell to make $1000 in profit. For one cake we got $0.91 in profit, for five we got $4.55, for 10 we got $9.10, and for 100 we gathered $91.00. We had to sell 1,099 cupcakes to get $1000 in profit. In science, we had to make a map. We needed to find out how far the ingredients traveled, and the amount of carbon dioxide released. I thought it was very interesting. I learned how to find the profit of something, and how to find the amount of CO2 it would take to get all of the ingredients to the retailer, the school, and to me. I Elective, we needed to create an instructable, a step-by-step on how to make our product. I learned about how to properly write it up so that it was readable, and we had to make a trifold. Mine is the picture above.

Backward-Looking:

• How much did you know about the subject before we started?

I have been at AdVENTURE for three years now, so I have attended three charity fairs. I knew how to make it work, and what to do, but there were some changes this year. For instance, I knew we would have to choose a group and a charity to get research done. But I didn't know that we had to choose our groups based on the topics we wanted to address. I thought we would group up with our friends and choose something we all agreed on. Also, we needed to make a map. This was different from last year. Last year, we had to do the Carbon Footprint sheet to find our how much carbon dioxide we released into the air collecting our ingredients, but we didn't need to make a map. This year, we had all of our information on the interactive map instead of just on the document. For the product, this year it needed to be related to the problem we were trying to address. We couldn't just have a charity on homelessness and make slime, it had to be related. One group made mini gingerbread house kits to support their charity on homelessness. I knew a lot about the topic before we began, but there were a few differences.

Inward-Looking:

• How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work?

I am proud of my work right now. I feel like I could've done a bit better, but by now I am very proud of the piece of work I have created for the charity fair. I liked the making of the product. That part was fun. I also liked taking a break from the selling so that I could see other people's charities and their products. I bought a lot of cool things, and it was quite lovely to see everyone else's work. What I disliked was the amount of work I had to do. My partner didn't help very much until I asked him to do it. And even then, I had to ask multiple times. I feel that he could've done for work to make it better for me. I had to do too much work. I enjoyed the selling, because lots of people liked the cupcakes' appearance, and they bought them.

Outward-Looking:

• Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently? In what ways was your work or process similar?

I did my work similarly to other people. I did mine a little bit differently, since I wrote the title by hand instead of printing it. I also put Christmas lights around the edges of my trifold to draw people in. There were still some leftovers, but we sold most of them. I did my cost a profit and all of the other work that was required the same as everyone else. Mine was a bit different, because I had a different product than everyone else, but that was obvious. I changed the colors to make it look nicer and brighter. 

Forward-Looking:

• What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?

If I had a chance to do this piece over again, I would choose a nature charity. I wanted to work alone with some sort of 'save the animals' or 'protect the environment' charity, but we weren't allowed to work alone, and the partner I chose didn't want to save the animals or the environment. I would've changed my product, and my trifold, and pretty much every aspect and part of my project, since I wanted a different charity. Next year for charity fair, I'm going to choose the charity I want to choose, and hopefully I'll also be allowed to work alone. 

WAC: Is ecotourism helping or hurting our national parks? 12/8/17

      

      Have you ever been to a national park? They are places of beauty: all natural plants, wild animals, and wonderful sights to see. You can camp there, and tourists often come to visit and have a picnic at these nice preserved places. However, ecotourism is getting out of hand. Most importantly, we want to preserve and protect our national parks so that future generations can enjoy them as well. Likewise, we would also want to protect them for us as well, so that we can enjoy them for a long time to come. But ecotourism should really make us wonder: are they actually helping the national parks? Or are they harming them?     
      
      Ecotourism is bad for our national parks. It harms, and it doesn't really do any good. It has very many cons, and not a lot of pros, as I have noticed, but there are still both sides to argue. Firstly, ecotourism is when humans come into the parks to see exotic things, like plants, or wild animals. People can be very interested in these things, but sadly, they don't seem to want to protect it. Maybe they are just really careless. Whatever the case, tourists tend to come on holidays, so there would be a lot of people there. So many, in fact, that there aren't enough parking spaces for all of them. The parks do want lots of tourists for financial reasons, but this could be a problem. People will want more parking space. Okay, get rid of this vegetation, relocate this family of bears, and BAM! New parking lot. But this isn't so great for the park itself. Why? Well, you had to cut out part of the park to do it, meaning that you had to get rid of those trees, chop away that vegetation, and relocate that family of bears. You got rid of some of the parks natural beauty! By making more space for the tourists, you reduced the size, wonder and beauty of the park itself, which is what the tourists come to see.      
      
      One of the best things about these national parks is the animals. The bears, the deer, the pretty birds. You want to feed the pretty birds. You want to pet the deer. You want to take a selfie with the bears. Don't do that. You have to keep the wild animals wild. The bears and deer are probably not afraid of you, since they see people everyday. They can be quite friendly to you, and they might get to know you. The rangers don't want this. If the animals get used to you, that will take away from the wild character they are supposed to have. They might keep smarming up to humans, and, if they do that, it might not be very safe or healthy for the people or the animals. If you or another tourist drops food, the animals will probably eat it. They will get used to human food and steal for picnic tables. This will reduce the amount of tourists that actually want to visit the park. Also, human food is not safe for bears and deer. It can make them very sick, which isn't very pleasant for the rangers, tourists, or the animals. The birds will eat the crumbs, but it won't harm them as much as it will harm the deer and bears. As has been noted by many of us, we shouldn't feed or be near the animals, for their safety and ours.      
      
      Some people think that ecotourism has a good impact on the national parks. The more tourists there are, the more rangers we will need, which gives more people job opportunities. This is true. Since ecotourism became big, we have needed more nature guides and rangers, thus opening the door for more people to get a job. Some people think that this is a really good reason for ecotourism being good. On the contrary, it isn't. Firstly, let's think about what the parks look like. Well, trees, plants, animals, it really depends on which park you're visiting. Okay, well, every park has animals. Let's have story time. There is always time for a story! And this one has a moral. See if you can guess it. Once upon a time, there was a bear named Harry. Harry the bear is an innocent animal living in a park. He sees people everyday, so he isn't afraid of them. People food is yummy, so Harry welcomes them. But it gives him a stomachache, no matter how delicious it is. Oh, well. People take pictures with Harry and post them on Instagram and Snapchat and other things he doesn't understand. Then one day, there are so many people that he can't believe it! So much food! Now that there are more people coming, there are more strange men and women dressed in a uniform than usual. One day, Harry wakes up, and he isn't at home! He rushes towards his house, but, to his dismay, Harry sees a gigantic expanse of black smelly stuff that is drying really fast. Right where his home was. It's very sticky, so Harry goes away, crying. A few days later, the black stuff has solidified, and Harry really have no chance of getting home now, since those scary multicoloured roaring things the rangers call 'cars' are blasting around. This is stuff that innocent animals like Harry have to face when ecotourism gets out of hand. What if you awoke, and you were in this strange house, and people had ripped away your home to make a mall? Is more money an excuse? Is more jobs for other people an excuse? No. This one reason of giving more people jobs, or having more money is far from being compelling enough to change this. As I have shown, ecotourism is bad for the innocent animals.      

      There are rules that tourists should follow. Those signs, "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS", and "NO WADING" or other signs are put around to protect the park from tourists. Tourists are there to see, to take photos, to make memories, not to wreck the parks. "Tourist: a person who is travelling or visiting a place for pleasure." Tourists are only there to see and be happy at the park's beauty. If they are throwing trash around, at sprinkling food places, and harming the animals, plants, and any other attractions of the parks, they totally wreck the nature idea. We are trying to preserve and protect our parks for future generations, not ruin them any more. If people are going to ruin the parks, there will be nothing beautiful or nature-like in our future. These parks are designed to preserve things. They have rules that we need to learn to follow. Our ignorance (or stupidity) is costing these innocent plants and animals their lives. We must learn to take care of them. If not, than we should just not go to the parks at all. In other words, we must educate ourselves on the purpose of these rules so that we can keep the parks nice looking for ages to come.      

      As I have shown, we must learn what damage our careless acts are doing. If we don't know, we won't try to stop it. And we should find a way to make people care, because if you don't care about a thing, than you won't try to help it. We should start cleaning up the trash and food we drop, we need to be careful about being too close to the animals, and we should learn the purpose of the rules so that we know why we have to follow them. We have to educate each other on what our actions are doing, otherwise more than just the parks are going to be damaged. The whole ecosystem inside them will be too. Our choices and actions make a huge impact on animals, plants and other humans that are innocent. They don't deserve the consequences that we give them without even knowing. We have to make sure that we aren't hurting anyone or anything before we choose something. As I have said before, lots of innocent beings in the parks suffer from our choices, like Harry. If we just tried to take care of the parks and their ecosystems, we might find that we can protect them. In conclusion, ecotourism is hurting our national parks. What do you think? Is ecotourism helping our parks? Or is it hurting them?


Sources: 
https://docs.google.com/document
https://www.npr.org
https://docs.google.com/document
https://www.npr.org
https://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisit/leavenotrace.htm
https://docs.google.com/document

Charity Fair Journey Map 12/1/17

This week we began our Charity Fair Journey of Item production. The charity fair is a time about halfway through the year when we get into groups and sell thing to donate money to a charity. This year, my group is making rainbow cupcakes to help racism.

For the map, we have to  plot the place where our item was manufactured. We used flour, sugar, unsalted butter, vanilla extract, baking powder, milk, eggs, salt, and food coloring. We had to physically look at the labels of the products to find out where they were distributed from. For example, the flour, sugar, and butter were all distributed from Better Living Brands LLC, P.O. Box 99 Pleasanton CA. We had to insert it on the map. It was a little hard, since the salt was from Chicago and the eggs were from Seattle, but we figured it out.

We had to decide if we were going to use a truck, plane or train to get the items to Safeway (that was where we bought them all, quite handy). Plane was if the items were manufactured in a different continent, train for same continent, and truck for same country. We used truck, and a car to get the things from Safeway to the school.

We used the truck as the mode of transportation. The link to our carbon emissions sheet shows how much carbon dioxide was released into the air during the journey.

S&EP: SP2, Using Models
This week, we were definitely using models. We made an interactive map. You can click on the little marks, and information about the product will appear. We spent the whole week following the directions from the slideshow and creating the map. Eventually, we created a big wonderful map that can zoom in and out and has lots of information about the production of rainbow cupcakes.

XCC: Structure and Function
In order for the factories to create, package and ship their products, they need function. They have to have a working system in order it complete their tasks. In order for the trucks, cars, airplanes, or trains to ship the stuff, they also need to work out a plan in order to get the things across the world or country. Then, the people at the stores need to organize the products to make it easy to get.

Project Blog!

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This week, we finished our Clean It Up! project. We had to experiment. After we decided what chemical substance we were going to use, and how our spill happened, we had to pretend to be scientists and experiment on some plants.  Since our substance was an acid, we decided to use our knowledge of neutralizing chemicals to fix our chemical spill. If you don’t remember what neutralizing is, there’s a brief recap:

Mixing an acid and a base together is the action of neutralizing. No matter what you add together, the result will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS be salt and water.

Okay. As I was saying, we were going to attempt neutralizing. First off, when you want to neutralize something, you should have everything handy. So we decided that we would use baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) as our base.

Before we got started, we needed to write up a lab report explaining our Introduction (how we came upon the spill), the hypothesis (which explained what we thought worked and why. We’ll get into that in a sec.), our materials needed, our procedure, the data of the experiment, and the conclusions we can make from the data.

Number One: Introduction. We decided to do lemon juice because we were all quite familiar with it and we thought it would be easy.

Two: Hypothesis. We thought that adding baking soda to the lemon juice and water on the plant was going to be easy, since we just needed to add some. We expected the baking soda to neutralize the lemon juice and save the plant.

Next, we had the materials as shown below:

• We will need sodium bicarbonate (baking soda),
• H2O (water)
• citric acid from the lemon juice
• four plants we will be testing on
• a tub to catch the mess
• a graduated cylinder to measure our substances
• measuring spoons
• cup to mix up the baking soda solution

Next we had our procedure: Firstly, we will label the plants ‘Plant 1, Plant 2, Plant 3, and Plant 4’. This is to ensure that we do not get mixed up and pour the wrong substances on the wrong plants. Secondly, we will mix up the baking soda solution. We need 125 mL on Plant 3 and 175 mL on Plant 4. DO NOT ADD THE SOLUTION TO THE PLANTS YET. Then we will add 100 mL of water to each plant. We need exactly 100 mL for each, otherwise the experiment will not work. Next, on every plant except for plant 1, we will add 100 mL of lemon juice. Do this step AFTER you have added the water to the plants. Next, we leave plants 1 and 2 alone and add 125 mL to plant 3 and 175 mL to plant 4. Make sure your measurements are exact, otherwise your experiment will be a dud. You need all of these things precise. Finally, let the plants sit in varying amounts of time. If you touch them, or add stuff to them, your experiment will be a dud. So be careful.

⚠WARNING! The plants might die. Keep this in mind. If they are dying, either wreck the experiment and save them, or let them die and keep your experiment perfect. It’s up to you.

Next, the data. The plants were okay. The solution we tried to save them with did more harm than good, so the spill was not as bad as we had first anticipated. Plant 1, to which there was just water, was strong and healthy. Plant two was weaker, having just the juice, but not bad. Plant three had water, juice, and 125 mL of baking soda solution. It was quite weak, but not dead. Plant four we added water, juice, and 175 mL of solution. Plant four was the weakest, but still it did not die. The town has hope.

As the scientists concluded, ‘Our testing may have done more harm than good’. The plants with our attempts to save them were the closest ones to dying. The scientists say that within a few days, the lemon juice should have completely receded and within another few days, the town should be better. As we conclude, our actions have done more harm than good for the town. The spill was not as bad as we thought, and the town should make a quick recovery. We have learned that plants do not really survive when you try to neutralize them. Maybe another substance would’ve worked better.

Backward Looking: In what ways do you think you need to improve?

I think that I could’ve been more prepared. When it was time for us to start testing, we hadn’t finished the lab report. I could’ve been more prepared for the testing, and for the final newscast presentation.

Inward Looking: How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work?

I feel quite proud about this piece of work. I liked the project; it was quite fun. I went through a lot to produce it. I liked that we got to write newspapers, and I love to write, so that was especially fun for me. I disliked that we didn’t have enough time to do a newscast and that we had to do an article instead. That was a little disappointing. I really enjoyed working with my team to create the article on our knowledge.

Outward Looking: What the one thing you particularly want people to notice when they look at your work?

I want people to notice how hard I worked on this piece. I feel like if they didn’t notice that, then I would feel a little worthless. But I really worked hard at it, and I would feel quite proud to have someone notice my hard effort at this.

Forward Looking: What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?

If I could redo this, I would have been extremely prepared for the tasks at hand. I feel like I could’ve been better about that, especially since our work at the end was not quite our best. But I would totally put my all into it and not waste a second If I could redo it.  

The Great Spill of 2017

https://www.naturalhealth365.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/lemons.jpg

Last week, we discussed the pH scale and all that. We learned about acids and bases and how to neutralize substances. Now, we have to apply our knowledge to begin a project. Let’s learn!

Our new project is about neutralizing. We have to choose some sort of acid or base, like lemon juice or egg or whatever. Then we have to create a news article explaining a chemical spill (with our chemical) and we have to explain how the spill came to be. My group chose to do lemon juice. We have a lot more to do than just the article. Let’s investigate further.

Now, the substance is lemon juice. We had to create not only the article on how our spill came to be, but an infographic on these questions:

1. Product Information: product identifier (name), manufacturer and suppliers names, chemical formula, structural formula
2. Hazardous Ingredients - i.e. if you choose Windex, what is the ingredient in Windex that you are trying to neutralize?
3. Physical Data of the hazardous ingredient (includes physical properties)
4. Fire or Explosion Hazard Data
5. Reactivity Data of the hazardous ingredient: information on the chemical instability of a product and the substances it may react with (includes chemical properties)
6. Toxicological Properties: health effects
7. Preventive Measures
8. First Aid Measures
9. Uses

If was a lot of research, but I learned a ton from the part one and now I know a lot of stuff about it. Okay, number one, the product information. Lemon juice. That is the “hazardous chemical” that was spilled. Actually, lemon juice is quite acidic. It contains citric acid, which is the harmful ingredient we have to neutralize. Citric acid is about a 2 on the pH scale. If you read my previous blog, you would know what that means. Or if you’re just smart in general and happen to know it. Either way, as long as that makes sense.

Citric acid is odorless and colorless with an acidic taste. It is a white crystalline solid. Its melting point is 153°C, and its boiling point is 175° C.

Even though citric acid can be painful (Inhale: can irritate lungs, respiratory tract, coughing, and a sore throat. Ingestion: vomiting, nausea, can irritate stomach, and diarrhea. Skin Contact: can cause redness, irritation. Eye contact: redness, pain. Erosion of teeth and dental enamel as well), i can be quite useful sometimes. It is found in citrus fruits (i.e. grapefruit, lemon, orange lime…), preservatives, sour candies, beauty products, and carbonated drinks.

Lemonade is still okay to drink, so don’t be saying t will damage you. Even plain lemons are okay, so lemon juice diluted in sugar and water won’t harm you.

If you would like to check out the whole article, go here. Don’t forget to check out the related article! We had a little extra time.

S&EP: SP8: Communicating information

This week, we spent our time gathering information from multiple sources. We had to collect as much as possible on our topic, and then we had to write an article (or two) on our findings. We had to communicate the information that we already knew through our article. I had a lot of fun starting our project; I can’t wait to move on to part two!

XCC: Cause and Effect

In our article, something had to happen. We had to make up a story of how our chemical spilled. Now that the chemical spills, we have to test out our ideas to see if the effect on the town will save it or destroy it. It could be either way, for the cause could be the spilled chemical and the effect could be great, or vice versa. This is a good example of case and effects.   

Acids and bases- how acidic are they? 11/4/17

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/216_pH_Scale-01.jpg

Last week, we learned:

• What a precipitate is
• What a catalyst is
• How to classify chemical reactions

This week, we will learn a bit more about acids and bases. And the pH scale. We learned a lot of these things last year, but we are recapping it.

WHAT THEY ARE-ACIDS AND BASES

Acids and bases are just acids and bases. They are everyday things, and they have a certain acidity-the acids have high acidities depending on what they are, and the bases do too. What about water? Water is acidic?! Why doesn’t it burn me up when I drink it?? Well, water is neither an acid nor a base. We call these substances neutrals. More about that later. We use a little thing called the pH scale to determine how acidic or basic something is. Litmus paper is a thing like that as well, but it only tells you whether the substance is an acid or a base and not how acidic it is.

pH SCALE-WHAT IT IS AND HOW IT’S USED

The pH scale is a way of determining the acidity of something. The numbers go from 1-14. The colors- Oh, well, I’ll show you…

ACIDS-WHAT ARE THEY?

Acids are acidic. That is how we describe them. I know, it may seem obvious, I mean the word acid is literally in the name, but acids are pretty cool. Let’s learn a bit more about them.

On the pH scale, an acid is less than pH 7. In other words, the reds, oranges, and yellows on the scale. The lower the number, the more acidic they are. pH 1 is extremely acidic, about the acidity of hydrochloric acid. pH six is about the acidity of urine or saliva. That’s the yellow. Everything in between… oh, well, later on there will be a more detailed one. On a piece of litmus paper, if you put it in an acid, the paper would turn red. That’s how it is with acids. They turn the paper and the indicator red. Speaking of indicator, we used it in our experiments. Universal indicator shows you if the substance is an acid or a base. For example, you place three drops of indicator in a small bowl. Then you pour three drops of, say, vinegar. We know vinegar is acidic, but let’s pretend you don’t. You watch as the mixture turns a pinkish-orange color. You can test the color against the pH scale to find out how acidic the vinegar was.

BASES-WHAT ARE THEY?

Bases are basic. Same as acids, that is obvious, because the word base is literally in the name. But bases are pretty much the opposite of acids. Let’s look deeper.

To be considered a base, the mixture of universal indicator and your substance has to be dark green, blue, or purple. Let’s say you added ammonia solution. Ammonia is basic, about an 11 on the scale, so the indicator would turn purplish. Same as acids, you can pour them on litmus paper. Same as acids, the paper only tells you i the solution is acidic, basic, or neutral. If the solution was basic, then you would see the litmus paper turn blue. Examples of bases are bleach, soapy water, cleaning supplies,milk of magnesia, baking soda, and sea water. Eggs are also basic. You can look it up anywhere. Substances are either acidic, basic or neutral, so it has to be one of them.

THE PROCESS OF NEUTRALIZATION

First things first, we need to discuss what a neutral substance is before we get into neutralization. A neutral is a substance that is neither acidic nor basic. It is neutral. If acids turn litmus paper red, and bases turn it blue, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that neutrals don’t change the color. The color of litmus paper is purple. An excellent example of a neutral is water. Pure, healthy water is a neutral. It is not basic, and it is not burn-your-tongue-out acidic either.  

What happens if you mix together an acid and a base? Does it matter the strength of the acid, or the basicness of the base? What happens? Well, whenever you mix together an acid and a base, you will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS get some type of salt (which is also a neutral. ALWAYS.) and water. ALWAYS. NO MATTER WHAT. Any type of neutralization reaction will always be a double displacement reaction. Remember the types? Here are some examples of neutralization reactions.

Basically, adding an acid and a base makes a neutral. Pretty easy to remember. If you remember the simple facts about acids and bases, you’re good to go. Let’s recap:

• Acids make litmus paper red; bases make it blue; neutrals make it purple.
• Acids are less than 7, bases are more than 7, and neutrals are 7 on the pH scale.
• All neutralization reactions are double displacements (remember Ethan, Grace, Brianna, and William!).
• Adding an acid and a base makes salt and water.
• All salts are neutrals.

S&EP: SP4: Analyzing and interpreting data

This week, we were discovering acids and bases while experimenting. We had a page to graph our discoveries and place them in a table. We would add different amounts of substances inside the testing plates and add indicator. We had to discover the reactions, and we had to analyze the data after we collected it.

XCC: Stability and Change

This week, we got to see the colors of the substances change. A lot of things changed about them, the color, sometimes the substance they were. Once, we even had to blow carbon dioxide into the indicator mixture to make it a neutral instead of an acid. That was fun to watch, the colors getting lighter and lighter until they were a light green. It was fun to watch until I got cross eyed-I was the one blowing.

Chemistry: The Stories

LINK TO IMAGE

BASICS

We have learned:

• Counting atoms
• Balancing equations
• Elements

We will learn:

• What is a precipitate?
• What is a catalyst?
• Classifying chemical reactions

WHAT IS A PRECIPITATE?

A precipitate is basically an undissolved solid in the chemical equation. The precipitate will always be on the product side of the equation because the reactants have all been transformed. There are none that are left to be a precipitate. So the precipitate is ALWAYS on the product side of the equation. Let’s look at some examples.

WHAT IS A CATALYST?

The catalyst helps the reaction go forward. It is not actually part of the reaction, it just helps it along. Actually, the catalyst is there to affect the rate of the reactions. It doesn’t always go forward, sometimes it make the reaction go slower.

Sometimes, the catalyst helps the reaction by making it go a lot faster. Sometimes, though, the reaction is slowed down by the catalyst.

CLASSIFYING CHEMICAL REACTIONS

There are different types of chemical reactions. Not just one, there are multiple. Let’s discover more.

1. The Synthesis reaction

The synthesis reaction is when 2 become 1

Example: C + O2 = CO2

MgO + H2O = Mg(OH)2

Think of it this way:

2. The Decomposition reaction

1 becomes 2

CaCO3 = CaO + CO2

3. The Single Displacement reaction

Where 2 people break apart and 1 joins another

Fe + CuSO4 = FeSO4 + Cu

4. The Double Displacement reaction

2 people break up and both meet another

NaCl + AgNO3 = NaNO3 + AgCl

S&EP: USING MATHEMATICS

This week we used math to figure out the answers to the equations. We were still balancing them, just that we had to identify which type of reaction they were. I thought that balancing and identifying equations was important for chemistry work. Once you get the hang of it, it really is quite fun!

XCC: STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION

The different reactions really are just different bonds. In the double displacement, one atom pulls itself off from a structure and bonds with another atom{s} to create a different structure. That is cool and really important, since atoms do that all the time in the world around us.