Make: Science Room

Fantastic lab and activity ideas you can hack and perform at home (always be safe, of course)…

Greetings citizen scientists, budding biohackers, and backyard explorers! We think you’ll find the Make: Science Room a fun and useful resource. We hope you’ll use it as your DIY science classroom, virtual laboratory, and a place to share your projects, hacks, and laboratory tips with other amateur scientists.

via Make: Online: Make: Science Room Home.

I’m ready for school to start now that the Holidays are over… I’m thinking about doing a few of these myself over the weekend since Mrs H is working and it’s “Daddy Day Care Weekend.”  MH loves geeking out.

I’ll post pics if we do.

Fake Gold and Green Skin

More fun info based on our studies of elements, chemical reactions, acids and salts so far this year…

HowStuffWorks “Why does fake gold turn your skin green?”: “When you buy a cheap, fake gold ring, it’s likely made of mostly copper. When you perspire, the metals in the ring react with the acid in your sweat to form salts, which are green. These acids are essentially causing the copper to corrode on the surface of the metal, which forms a salt compound of the metal. These salts are absorbed into the skin and the result is a decidedly green digit. This is nothing to be worried about; it’s not a metal allergy you’re suffering from. It simply means that the gold ring you thought was real is really just a cheap imitation. Metal allergies cause redness and swelling, not a dull green color. Another way to spot fake gold is that it can rust in high humidity or over time. “

The world is much more interesting when you know a little background information!

Chemical Equation Practice

Here are the 10 problems we started on today (click).

Additionally, you can try your hand on the interactive balancing activity site here:

Element Balancing Activity

Let me know if you have any questions!

Class Notes for Friday Oct 16, 2009

I can’t believe we’re already half-way done with October!

Anyway, here is the note sheet on Chemical Equations that we completed in class:

Download as a PDF

View as a Web Page

Remember to do questions 4 and 5 on page 201 for Homework if you didn’t complete them in class.

There’s a strong possibility you’ll have a quick check-up quiz on Monday which will be 5-10 chemical equations for you to balance, so study up!

*There are many good chemical equation tutorial sites on the web if you do a quick Google search. I’d suggest looking at this one if you want to try some extra problems or need extra help.*

I’ll be home this weekend, so feel free to email, IM, call, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, smoke signal, etc me if you have any questions!

Class Notes for Thursday Oct 15, 2009: Lavoisier

Today we continued our studies of Antoine Lavoisier and his importance to chemistry (and many other areas).

Here is a link to the reading that we covered in class on the life of Lavoisier.

Additionally, here’s a link to the Wikipedia article we discussed which has a couple of fantastic pictures relating to Mr. Lavoisier and his experiments.

Remember, your homework is due tomorrow. In case you forgot…

Your Homework:
Find 10 important points about Lavoisier from our conversation in class or from your own readings of their linked texts.

Write/type/blog those points and your responses to them in complete sentences.

(Your points should not just regurgitate what others have said but include your own insights).

See you tomorrow!

Class Notes for Tuesday October 13, 2009: Lavoisier and Mendeleyev

Here are the notes we started covering in class on Tuesday and will finish up on Wednesday (your homework is on the last slide):

If you have trouble finding points for your homework, try clicking on Antoine Lavoisier’s and Dmitri Mendeleyev’s names at the top of slides 9 and 10. Those links will take you to the texts of their respective books.

Incredible Hydrogen Torch

Check this out:

I wonder if your cars will be powered by hydrogen combustion someday? I hope so.

Test 1 Grades Posted!

I’ve just finished grading Test 1.

You can see your results on http://www.mygradebook.com.

If your dog/cat/squirrel ate your password or (for some reason!) you have forgotten/lost your password, send me an email/Facebook message/IM/txt and ask.

For the most part, the grades you see will be your final grades for the semester.

Let me just say I’m am SO proud of you all… thank you for being fantastic students.

Mr. H

Test 1 Review Wednesday Sept 30, 2009

Today in class we took the Test 1 Review to help prepare for this quarter’s only major test (worth 12 points).

Here is the link to the Test 1 Review.

Use the review to help you study and prepare your notes for Test 1 (Thurs-Fri this week) since many of the questions will strongly resemble these questions and the topics they cover. The formatting will also be the same.

We’ll go over the answers in class.

Homework 6: Chemical Reactions

Here is your homework for the week of September 24, 2009 to October 1, 2009.

As always you can skip 5 questions.

Have fun!

Homework 6 as a PDF

Homework 6 as a Word Doc

Homework 6 as Web Page