Using

The unit on predicting covers four functional areas, heat, solutions, equilibrium, and acid and bases. All units will have a writing assignment as they have application to the real world. The student has two weeks to compose a response to a prompt. This response is the evaluation of what they know or understand from the module. Using the information of the writing seminar requires the use of graphic organizers, rough drafts, and final drafts to successfully complete the assignment. I find that when the student is required to articulate the concepts in a paper, they are going to provide me an accurate appraisal of what they have truly learned. Most of the content for the paper comes from the classroom experience.

The using unit is the most directly life applicable unit in the course. We will look at how solutions enter our lives and how they are manipulated by the environment as well as humans. Heat is the most common facilitator of a solution and as such it is the first unit. Many students do not understand the difference between heat and temperature and thus we start with this concept. Heat is a quantifies in calculations as well as observations as to how reliable it is to estimate the amount of heat required to perform a task versus how much temperature will be changed.

Solutions have been discussed in a variety of formats prior to this time, but now is the time when we look closely at what a solution is, what it affects on its environment and how do you calculate a concentration so that you can predict what will happen as a result of contact with a given solution.

The module on equilibrium is called reverse this. This is an indication as to what will be examined in the module. To this time we have assumed that all chemical reactions will go or produce a give set of products and then stop. Equilibrium reaction will move from reactants to products and then back again, hence the reference to reverse this.

The last module is acids and bases. We will look at their occurrence in our lives as will as how to quantify the relationship between the two extremes to neutralize them. This is the final module to the unit and the final unit of the course. We go from here to the case study that looks at all of the material covered to date.

The last event of this unit is an oral exam. There are a set of question available to the student from the first day of school that look at all aspects of this unit. The students are given a week to review and prepare and then in random order the study teams are called into an interview process. This process resembles the interview process for a job, in that questions and situations are presented and the student is allowed to demonstrate their knowledge of the subject. In this second oral exam the student retakes a question with a reduction of one grade category.

heat

solutions

reverse this

acids & bases

case study can of bull

lab reports

lab presentations