VIDEO: "HIDDEN FIGURES"

Welcome to the 2017-2018 school year, students!  We will spend the next 182 days of instruction studying the fundamentals of Chemistry.

A major focus of interest for chemists is pursuing all the different ways that matter and energy can be arranged.  Much of that knowledge can not be predicted in advance by any theory, but instead can only be determined by experimental investigation.   For this reason, Chemistry is an 'in-between science' focused tightly on the design, performance and analysis of experiments.  This emphasis on the experiment requires chemists to use math constantly:  in a sense, Chemistry is a math course with scientific application.

To help students understand the importance of math to science, and how mastering mathematics opens doors for tackling all kinds of problems, students will be asked to consider the true story of the West End Computer Section in U.S. space program, as shown in the film 'Hidden Figures.'   They will see how an unappreciated group of human 'computers' used their abilities to approach scientific and social problems, and how they did their part to achieve great things.

Here is a brief trailer for the film.  It shows an outline of the film's story:



Also, here is a short feature about the making of the film. In this feature, you will learn how author Margo Lee Shetterly, who wrote the book on which the film was based, grew up learning about the 'human computers' at West End, and how she became convinced that she needed to tell the story of women like Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughn:

 

DAY 8: NOTES, POWER POINTS

***UPDATE***

The FINAL in this course will be administered after the break (11:05-1:55) on Wed., July 12th.  

NO HOMEWORK WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER WEDNESDAY, ONLY CLASSWORK

Mr.Hatfield's 2nd-session Chemistry students took their third test today.   A class roster of 44 has now been reduced to 23 actively attending.   

The good news is that some have raised their output in the course, and now have a passing grade.  The concern is that still too many students are failing to complete work outside of class, and thus are in danger of not passing the course.   With that in mind, here are more resources to help students 'up their game' .

FIRST:   Students received notes on reaction rates and equilibrium constants in class.   A copy of the Notes can be found HERE:

NEXT:  Students will be using a third Study Guide to complete the rest of their Notes, based  on material from Chapter 19.   They can download a copy of the Power Point containing those Notes HERE:

FINALLY:  Students were given a worksheet based on the following video, shown in class.   This worksheet is due tomorrow!

You can view the video, below:

It demonstrates the centrality of water to most acid-base chemistry, and explains how to calculate equilibrium constants for acids (Ka) and bases (Kb), and how to express those as pKa's or pKb's:

DAY 6: ENTHALPY OF REACTION

Students began the morning session today by attempting the second test, which covered gas laws.   A very large number of students were not prepared, judging by their Composition Books. If students don't complete work assigned outside of class the same date it is assigned, they will fall further and further behind.

With that in mind, the  following video by Paul Anderson was introduced in class on Day 5 (July 5th).   It helpfully reviews some of the information already given in lecture regarding heat and the enthalpy of reactions. It also features a very handy, step-by-step demonstration of how to apply Hess's Law (a SUBTLE and advanced topic) to calculate enthalpies.




Students have an assignment based on that video, which is available HERE as a PDF file.

DAY 3: CAN CRUSH LAB

Students present on Friday's class performed a lab that illustrates the effects of air pressure.   Many earned extra credit by bringing aluminum cans to class.  The data collected on their lab papers should be copied along with the setup information on those papers into their COMPOSITION BOOK.

What is students weren't present on Friday's class?  This video shows another group of students, doing essentially the same activity:




This LAB REPORT, inside their notebook, is what will be graded.   It will include a pair of drawings using colored pencils in which students attempt to explain what they have seen in class, and it will also feature their attempts to calculate the force involved in the lab. 

Those calculations can be summarized as follows:

DAY 2: VIDEOS FROM PAUL ANDERSON

Paul Anderson is a veteran high school teacher who has earned graduate degrees in science education and is widely-respected consultant on science curriculum and instruction.  

His videos are part of the reason why he is in high demand, and we will be using his short, information-rich and fast-paced videos in instruction. 

Typically, students will be given a video worksheet.  Some items are things that can be completed by simply watching the video and 'filling in the blanks';  others require students to apply the knowledge to solve a problem, complete a diagram or answer a question in complete sentences that refer to the original question.

Here's STOICHIOMETRY, shown in the morning before the break:


The worksheet based on this video is available online HERE:

Here's GASES, shown after the break:

2nd SUMMER SESSION, DAY 1: LET'S GET STARTED

Students in the second session of Chemistry met for the first time with Mr. Hatfield, and received an outline of the session, which appears below:

Students also were expected to complete a video worksheet based on a Standard Deviants video that reviewed measurement concepts from the first semester of Chemistry:



There is literally no time to waste! Students have already reviewed a week's worth of material, and there are four assignments in ATLAS already that should have been submitted!

SUMMER SCHOOL, DAY 10: NOTES, VIDEOS

Students: HERE are the Power Point Notes on 'Stoichiometry of Fluids' given in the first two weeks of Unit 4, the final unit of the Fall semester in Mr. Hatfield's Chemistry classes.   

This section of notes covers problems having to do with molar volumes of gases, limiting reactants and percent yield, molar concentrations and other properties of solutions.   A Study Guide based on these notes is available HERE in PDF form.

Students, here is the video shown in class, in which Paul Andersen demonstrates limiting reactant and percent yield problems:




The worksheet based on this video is available as a PDF file HERE.


Students can watch Paul Andersen's discussion of solutions and their properties as many times as needed here, on-line, in the video embedded below:




Students can also access the PDF version of the worksheet given in class, based on this video, HERE.

SUMMER SCHOOL DAY 9: STOICHIOMETRY

Students:  HERE is the second group of Power Point Notes for your Unit 3 test on Monday:

https://www.mediafire.com/?hyumweo1v43a2t6

The first set of notes can be found here:

A Study Guide based on both sets of notes will be made available in Thursday's class, to assist students in preparing for Monday's test.  You can download it as a PDF file here.


Students, as with 'The Mole', I am making this Paul Andersen video available through the class blog.   Please watch as many times as you need:


The worksheet based on this video is available online HERE:

SUMMER SCHOOL DAY 6: "LEWIS DOT DIAGRAMS"

Here's a video shown in class on Tuesday, June 20th, in which Paul Andersen explains how to do Lewis dot structures, which are used to keep track of the number of VALENCE ELECTRONS in the representative elements:

SUMMER SCHOOL DAY 5: "NAMING COMPOUNDS"

Here's another Paul Anderson video that is sure to help students fill in the gaps in their understanding, on how to name both IONIC and COVALENT COMPOUNDS:

SUMMER SCHOOL DAY 4, VIDEO: "THE LIVES OF THE STARS"

;

The following episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos, 'The Lives of the Stars', forms the basis of a student homework assignment given in class on Friday, July 16th.   


The entire episode is available for students to watch HERE: https://youtu.be/eg1C3zq0ZrQ

SUMMER SCHOOL, DAY 3: "CHEMISTRY, THE BASICS"

Parts of this video were shown in class on July 15th, a day that Mr. Hatfield was out of class and students had a substitute teacher.

The sections of the video shown in class dealt with measurement (metric system, significant figures) and stoichiometry.   I'm making this available here so anyone who was absent that day can review it, or (if present) watch it again.   These topics will crop up on a weekly basis for most of the year.

SUMMER SCHOOL DAY 2, VIDEO: COSMIC VOYAGE

Summer School students viewed a 36-minute IMAX video in class on Monday and Tuesday, and should've already completed a worksheet based on part of the video. The film, 'Cosmic Voyage', was made in 1996 for the Smithsonian Institute and was clearly inspired by a classic science education film called 'Powers of Ten', originally produced in 1977 by the husband-and-wife team of Rae and Charles Eames.

'Cosmic Voyage' approaches the idea of using the metric system, which is based on powers of ten, to explore the question: "What is really large, and really small?" The film first zooms out from an acrobat's ring in St. Mark's Square in Venice, the place where Galileo first trained his telescope on the heavens.


Through 23 powers of ten, we leave first the Earth, then our solar system, then the Milky Way Galaxy behind, until we reach the limit of modern astronomy, where we can see images from about 13 billion years past.


Reversing course, the video then zooms in on drop of water in the Dutch town of Delft, where Antonie Van Leuuwenhoek first trained his early microscope to discover the hidden world of microbes.



As we zoom in on a paramecium, we penetrate its cell nucleus, then zoom in on a molecule of DNA.


Within that molecule is a carbon atom, and the world within that atom is mostly empty space! Within the atom, the atomic nucleus contains virtually all of an atom's mass, made of particles called protons and neutrons. These, in turn, are formed from even smaller particles called quarks.

The film continues with a discussion of the search for a fundamental theory in physics through the use of particle accelerators like Fermilab, along with an overview of the likely "recent" events that led to our sun, our solar system, the Earth and life itself.

Here, presented on YouTube, is the first segment (Chapter 1) of the film who wish to review the material or share it with others. As the narrator (Morgan Freeman) intones, 'we are all travelers on a voyage of discovery!' Chapter 2, and Chapter 3 can be assessed at YouTube directly or by clicking on the hyperlinks 

POWER POINT: CARBON, THE SHAPE OF LIFE

Students:

The first week of May ends with a Unit Test on Friday, May 5th!

To help students prepare, please find the Power Point Notes HERE, along with a PDF of the Study Guide based on those notes HERE.

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY VIDEOS

In Monday's class, we talked about the difference between organic (based on carbon) and inorganic (based on some other element) molecules.   Life, of course, is based on organic molecules.

We explained that there are four major classes of carbon-based compounds used by living things:   carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids.

Each of these compounds is made of individual 'building blocks' called MONOMERS.   The monomers are linked together with covalent bonds to make large chains called POLYMERS, and the process of making polymers is referred to as POLYMERIZATION.

Here's a video from Bozeman Science, with animations, that gives some nice background on monomers and polymers:




Carbohydrates are carbon-based macromolecules based on C, H and O.  They are polar and readily dissolve in water.

A simple sugar by itself, like glucose, is termed a monosaccharide, and serves as a 'building block' (monomer) to build a larger chain of many molecules called a polymer. In the case of carbohydrates, the polymer made from many monosaccharides linked together by dehydration reactions is called a polysaccharide.

Examples of polysaccharides made of glucose include cellulose, glycogen and starch.   Each of these glucose polymers are biologically important. 




 Finally, here's yet another video by AP Chemistry teacher Paul Andersen, this on the class of macromolecules called PROTEINS.   



 PROTEINS often are used to build extremely useful and specific molecules called ENZYMES:


 

VIDEO: ACID-BASE EQUILIBRIUM

Students were shown this video in today's class.   Paul Andersen demonstrates the centrality of water to most acid-base chemistry, and explains how to calculate equilibrium constants for acids (Ka) and bases (Kb), and how to express those as pKa's or pKb's:

VIDEO: WATER, A 'POLAR' MOLECULE

Students were shown the following video by Paul Anderson in class on Friday, March 17th---which is also the last day of the 3rd quarter!  

There is no worksheet associated with this video, but students should be able to explain how water's molecular structure creates polarity, which in turn generates many of water's other properties, including cohesion, adhesion and the tendency to dissociate into ions of opposite charge (H+ and OH-).  

Make sure you are familiar with this material, students!

FINALLY, AS A REMINDER:  Saturday School takes place in Mr. Hatfield's classroom (N-63) on Saturday, March 18th, between 8:45 and 11:30.   

If you were assigned Saturday School and fail to attend without a parent contact, it will be treated as defiance.

VIDEO: ENTHALPY OF REACTION

The following video by Paul Anderson was introduced in class on Thursday, Feb. 23rd.   It helpfully reviews some of the information already given in lecture regarding heat and the enthalpy of reactions. It also features a very handy, step-by-step demonstration of how to apply Hess's Law (a SUBTLE and advanced topic) to calculate enthalpies.




Students have an assignment based on that video, which is available HERE as a PDF file.

VIDEO: GASES

Paul Anderson helps us out again.   This video has a great set of demonstrations using a set of interactive animations.   Students are expected to complete a worksheet based on this video:

VIDEO: EQUILIBRIUM

Students:  here is Paul Andersen's video on 'Equilibrium', the final video worksheet of the semester:


 There is also a link to where you can download a PDF version of the video worksheet, HERE.