Reflection Post

During the past semester that we've been using blogger for science, I have had many positive and negative views of it; many difficulties and highlights; and most of all, many days when my grades depended on it. Blogger was of exponential use when somebody was absent from school, didn't quite catch what the day's homework was, or needed to review for a test. Additionally, if somebody needed more information or a better understanding of something, a couple of videos that my fellow peers posted up really shone out and explained in ways of a completely different dimension. Blogger was also great in the fact that it let us post picture, videos, change backgrounds and font colors to make our posts more visually enchanting for students our age. As time went on over the course of the past two science quarters, blogging got more and more simple to use and I felt as if the majority of my class used it to save them from getting zeros for things they didn't quite catch in class. However, Blogger did have it's negative attributes. Firstly, when you posted a comment to a 6th or 7th grade blog, the computer made you verify to see if you were human, and if you didn't type anything in, it would not post up your comment. Another negative attribute was that Blogger at times erased your blogs for no apparent reason, which was a huge waste of time. Final summation: Blogger, though it is at times risky and unpredictable, is a miracle when it comes to late night homework sessions, and times when Science just gets confusing.

Reflection Post

Over the course of the last two quarters of science, blogger was of good use. It allowed the students that were absent to catch up on what had been noted in class and gave them a better insight or understanding to what had been reviewed. Blogger gives us the opportunity to be more creative with our works including pictures, color schemes, and attractive layouts. Blogger also gave us permission to use posts for future tests or quizzes as its posts are mainly general recaps of a science class and can be used as a great studying tool. Although blogger was, to a large extent, of good perspective, it did take hold of some negative features. One included erasing the data you posted on blog and having to take zero because it didn't publish. Another feature that had primarily bothered me was that as I was concluding my comment on a blog post, blogger automatically erased the paragraph I had written taking another portion of time from my lunch. Lastly, I didn't enjoy commenting on the 7th and 6th grade blogs as I had to wait for a verification giving me doubts about if my comment was going to post to their blogs. Otherwise, I did enjoy taking part in blogger and thought it was of great help to all students.

Reflection Post

My impressions about Blogger
My impressions about Blogger are mostly positive. I think the idea of introducing Blogger in our student’s daily life is good. Blogger is a great way for people who are sick to know what happened in class. It also helps clarifies some things you couldn’t understand in class. It is also a way to learn. I also like the fact that Blogger’s interface is easier and nicer than the one in Moddle. Blogger is also like a general base of everything we covered in Science, it is here if you want to print some courses you lost a long time ago. For the negative effect one of them is that Blogger can sometimes don’t save what you wrote in comment which makes it pretty annoying. But in overall all the comments arrive safely to Ms. D. An other negative things about Blogger is the picture manager which is very frustrating, you can’t do everything by yourself, you have to use some standard created by Blogger which decrease the liberty that you want to put in your post.

Reflection Post

Looking back, the blogging was actually quite helpful to people who were sick and just generally for getting a grasp into the world of blogging. No matter how complicated and frustrating Blogger gets at times I think everyone should be exposed to this form of sharing work. For me, it helped a lot when I was sick or on CEESA trips because I could just go look on blogger and find out what we did in class. However, Blogger does not only have positives. This quarter I had to use a different computer at home and this computer always signed me out of blogger when I clicked “view blog”. As a result, I had to post almost every blog comment and scribe post at school in the mornings as it was impossible to post from the other computer.

Other than that blogging went quite smoothly over the course of the 4^th quarter; especially now that we know what we actually have to do. One last thought is that this blog will be extremely helpful when we want to study for our science final, because it roughly outlines what we did,provides information and an general overview. All in all, blogging went smoothly with a few faults here and there.

-Ines(:

Endothermic and Exothermic Reactions

On Friday 28th, after showing our colored periodic tables to ms.D, we were told that we are going do a lab about exothermic and endothermic reactions. We had to read about them for that day, so everybody already knew what they were.
For you people that had the shame of missing our class, or just aren't part of it (which is also a shame), here is a definition of both:

- Exothermic Reaction: A change in which energy (or NRG) is released.

- Endothermic Reaction: A change in which energy is taken in.

So, the purpose question was "How do measured temperatures show the difference between an exothermic and endothermic reaction?"

In the actual lab, we mixed Yeast with Hydrogen Peroxide, and Baking Soda with Vinegar.
Yeast and Baking Soda being the Solutes, and Hydrogen Peroxide and Vinegar being the Solvents.
After consulting it with ms.D, we decided that the independent variable of the lab was temperature, and that the dependent variable of the lab were the endothermic and exothermic reactions.

The result of the first experiment was that Yeast and Hydrogen Peroxide became instantly very bubbly and hot, and stunk like rotten bread.







The second experiment was a bit slower, as the chemical reaction took longer to occur. The result was lots of bubbles and the container becoming cold.





All of the experiments went without any injury and everyone left with good data.
The whole lab is in our Chemistry Packet, so check it out!

If you still don't understand the difference between endothermic and exothermic reactions, here is a link showing some simple examples of them.

Thank you for reading my scribe post. I hope you enjoyed it and that it was helpful.

The next scribe is... well, I can't find the list of available scribes, so I'll have to ask ms.D.

Reflection Post

Reflection Post-Alex

I thought that this 3 quarter blogging project was a good idea. Students are able to look on here when confused, and hopefully will have things cleared up after doing so. I know that I found this helpful previously, and am finding it helpful now when studying for our final exam. I didn't like how there seemed to be quite some amount of technical difficulties when posting things on Blogger. I think it was nice that everyone had to do a scribe post each time, so each person only had to post once for that quarter. Most things about Blogger were pretty easy to use. There were 2 things that I didn't like as much was how difficult it could be to upload pictures, and not being able to copy and paste things. 

:) Alex

Reflection Post - Severyn

As I stated in my previous Reflection Post, Blogger is a great website that helped me and others during the school year. First of all, I didnt had to visit Moodle, which takes a long time to log in - I've just visited Blogger and there it was, my homework.
Other good thing about Blogger is that it is very easy to use. That's probably the fact makes me like it. You just enter the address in the URL box and that's it. I had fun working with Blogger and I think that my teacher, Ms. D should do the same Blogger project with next grades. Severyn :)

Thursday's Reviewing Class

Today, May 27^th, our class was about reviewing things from Chemistry Unit for our final exam. First off all, Ms. D asked us to go Dr. Heslips office. There we took some pictures and later visited Dr. Haddons balcony to take a picture with Mr. Houlis. After taking some lovely images, Ms. D and us returned to the classroom. There we started discussing exercises that were on the chemistry quiz we took Tuesday, May 25^th. Here is the list of the exercises including the answers and the notes we took with Ms. D.

Protons vs. Electrons

Proton is a stable particle with positive charge equal to the negative charge of an electron. It is also found in nucleus and it is made from quarks.

Electron is an elementary particle with negative charge. It is also spinning around the nucleus. It can also be found in a lightning.

Matter vs. NRG

Matter is anything that takes up space or anything that has mass.

NRG is not matter, it is an ability to do work or cause change.

*Mass vs. Weight

Mass is the amount of matter inside an object. Uses kg or g as units. It also stays the same.

Weight is the amount of force put on the object by gravity. Uses newtons as units. It also changes itself depending on the position. (Ex. On the moon, on the poles.)

Solute vs. Solvent

Solute (dissolute) is a mixture that is added to the solvent, where the solvent dissolves it. The process is called a chemical change. (Chemical change – a change in matter that produces one or more new substances.)

Solvent (dissolvent) is a substance that is mixed with the solute.

(Ex. Cedevita: solute = powder, solvent = water)

Homogeneous vs. Heterogeneous

Homogeneous mixture is a mixture where you can’t see the different parts. (Ex. Alcohol.)

Heterogeneous mixture is a mixture where you can see the different parts because everything is grouped up. (Ex. Sperm.)

*Capacity vs. *Volume

Capacity is the amount of matter an object can contain.

Volume is the amount of 3-dimensional space occupied by an object.

*SI is the metric system that measures them. Here is the list of some other chemistry-related vocabulary words.

Shape – a 3-dimensional geometric shape.

States of Matter – a distinct state of matter in a system; matter that is identical in chemical composition and physical state and separated from other material by the phase boundary.

Molecular Motion – the movement (average) of particles in a state of matter.

Molecular Proximity – distance of particles in a state of matter.

To see a Table about the States of Matter, please click on the link below:


States of Matter Table

Last thing Ms. D said is the relation to today’s world; if someone would solve the Filament state of matter, and make it be together and stay for more than one second, that person would create a whole new type of energy, more efficient one. So, that means that no more oil or gas needs to be spent. After the long reviewing session, Ms. D showed us the assignments for homework, located on Moodle.

Due Friday, May 28th:


1. The 7th Blog Comment. Remember, you must have three 8th grade comments, three 7th grade comments and two 6th grade comments.
2. Color in the TWO Periodic Tables in your packet - be sure to read the directions for what you need to do for each.

Follow the link below:

Moodle for 8th Grade


The next scriber is Daniel!

Class On Friday

In class Friday we went over the liquids and solids observed in a lab on Thursday. As a class we decided which substance was compound which was an element and which substance was a mixture. After everyone went up and wrote substance under where they thought it belonged we all went through to check each-others answers. This is what we ended up with:

In the table below the numbers next to the letters underneath "symbols/formlas" are meant to be down lower and smaller-like in this image-

REMINDER:
Quiz tuesday:
-over 3 parts in your book you read as homework
-your chart in the packet
-and the 2 sets of notes

Elements:

• pure substance (simplest)
• can't be divided
• no "+"'s in formula
• and has only one chemical symbol
  

Compounds:

• pure substance
• 2 or more elements combined chemically
• has a ratio (always the same)
• ONE chemical formula

Mixtures:

• 2 or more elements involved
• NOT CHEMICALLY combined
• 2 or more chemical formulas
• formulas have "+"'s
  
  TYPES OF MIXTURES:
  
  Homogeneous- uniform mixture, same throughout
  Ex.cedvita, mineral water, salt water
  
  Heterogeneous-not uniformed mixture, not same throughout
  (Looks like a salad. You can tell where the tomato is, where the lettuce is, where the cucumber is; it all stands out)
  Ex.soil
  
  Solution is a homogeneous mixture.
  2 parts:
  
  -Solute(what you have less of): part that dissolves
  
  -Solvent(what you have more of, and usually a liquid): dissolving part
  
  Examples-
  In salt water:
  solute-salt
  solvent-water
  
  In cedvita:
  solute-orange powder
  solvent-water
  
  In mineral water-
  solute-CO2(gas)
  solvent-H2O (liquid)
  
  Stated by Ms. D, "96% of the time H2O is the solvent"
  
  ONE LETTER ELEMENTS:
  O
  H
  N
  C
  
  TWO LETTER ELEMENTS:
  He
  Cu
  Au
  Fe
  Li
  Cr
  Ge
  
  THREE LETTER ELEMENTS:
  Une
  Uun
  Uuu
  And these are all, man-made solids, and last less than a second usually.
  
  ¬We also figured out how to read the substances formulas' using math.
  
  In the formula above there are 4 hydrogens, because you multiply H x 3 and you get 3 hydrogens. Then add the H at the beginning. and you get a total of 4.
  
  There are also 2 carbons and 2 oxygens used to create the substance.
  
  
  In case you want to look up more formulas, this is a cool site I used:
  
  http://www.chemindustry.com/apps/chemicals
  
  
  Next scriber is Severyn.

Elements, Mixtures & Compounds!

Today in class we had Mr. Tim as our teacher because Ms. D went on a field trip with the 7th graders.Mr. Tim discussed elements, compounds, and mixtures to us.

An element: a substance which cannot be broken down into other substances by ordinary chemicals. Each element is represent by a symbol. Example: oxygen = O , gold = Au, helium= He

Here is a link to "The Element Song" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFIvXVMbII0

A compound: two or more elements can be combined to form compounds. Compounds are very different from the elements from which they are formed. Example:NaCl, made from sodium, a dangerous and explosive element, and chlorine, a poisonous gas.

A mixture: made from two or more substances, elements, compounds, or both in definite proportions, and these proportions are not always the same. Example: soil, cake, milk

Homogeneous mixture: the substances in a homogeneous mixture are so evenly mixed that you can't see the different parts. Example: cake batter, petrol, plastic spoon

Heterogeneous mixture: in a heterogeneous mixture you can see the different parts. Example: salad, gravel, car

After discussing those topics, we reviewed temperature, weight, mass, volume, and density. We gave a definition, units, and the equipment used for each property.

Temperature: - a measure of the average NRG of motion of the particles of a substance

- Celsius and Kelvin

- thermometer

Weight: - a measure of the force of gravity on an object.

- Newtons, kilograms

- force scale, spring scale

Mass: - a measure of how much matter is in an object.

- kilograms

- TBB

Volume: - the amount of space that matter occupies.
-centimeters cubed
-ruler, graduated cylinder
Density: - the measurement of how much mass of a substance is contained in a given volume
-TBB, ruler

Finally we got to our rotation lab on matter. In this lab we had to smell and examine 12 different substances and write down their symbol/formula, their physical properties, decide if the substance was a solid, liquid or gas and decide if it was an element, compound or mixture.

Here are some substances that were examined: ^.

• Copper- Cu, solid, element

• Hydrogen peroxide- H₂O₂ , liquid, compound 
• Rubbing Alcohol-C₃H₈O, Liquid, compound

The homework from today is to complete "States of Matter-pg 42-47" and by reading those pages fill out States of Matter Note Taking Section in our Chemistry Packet.

Also don't forget another blog comment is due tomorrow (Friday).

The next scriber is Alex.