First Lab of the Year, Revisited

I feel that this year in chemistry I grew most in my understanding on reactions, how they occur and the products they create. The “final” product that was made to show my understanding of this is the post Observation vs. Inference lab that we recently took at the end of quarter 3. The product that we have as our “final” was a repeat of the lab that gave us an idea on how much we have grown since the beginning of the year.

This is the lab we worked off of (INSERT PICTURE OF LAB HERE)

We attempted this lab at the beginning of the year in quarter 1. The objective of this lab was to establish where we were at in chemistry and where this class would help us grow. The lab was relatively simple, we combined aluminum foil into different chemicals that at the time were new to us. We later learned these chemicals were copper chloride and copper sulfate. We then wrote observations and hypothesis’s about why the materials did what they did. I said that I observed changes in appearance, temperature and sound. We used our minimal knowledge on the subject at hand to describe what was going on. Fast forward to the end of quarter 3, we redid this experiment and wrote another hypothesis about the reaction. After making another hypothesis, we compared the new one to the old one and saw the tremendous growth.

My first artifact to support my growth was from the beginning of the year, I described the reaction that was taking place using a limited vocabulary that I had learned from years prior. This year I learned all kinds of terms that helped me understand the way that the reaction was forming. The best part from my original hypothesis was saying that the copper chloride reacted with the CuCl‑2. Since this original hypothesis I have expanded my knowledge learning about different ways the chemical formulas need to be balanced and how they reacted. I also learned the terms related to these chemical reactions, for example the reaction that we tested was a single displacement reaction, this means that the aluminum went into a reaction that only had one chemical in it. I also found out what made the aluminum react in the equation and why it reacted. It was the chloride, I know this because in our sheet of single displacement reactions it showed that Cl was above Al this means a reaction will occur. We also needed to know how to balance equations to make the reactions “work”. To balance the equations we needed to add a certain number of on element (Such as Carbon) to another side of an equation to make it so that they were equal on both sides. These two artifacts show how I grew in my understanding of chemistry since the beginning of the year.

The biggest struggle I faced though this unit and many of the units in this class, was understanding the terminology going along with the lesson. In this lesson I needed to understand all of the different ways that things could react. Synthesis, single displacement, double displacement, combustion and decomposition. These are ways that we used to find out how each reaction would occur and what the product would be, for example if a combustion reaction occurs it will always produce CO2 and H2O. As for others such as decomposition and synthesis it is just adding together or breaking it apart.

The reason I feel I have grown in my understanding of reactions and their terminology is because this subject was very difficult. After working hard and studying, I have been able to memorize the terms and pass all of my tests demonstrating that I understand reactions and how they are useful in chemistry.