Chemistry Survival Packet

7/23/2019 Chemistry Survival Packet

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Honors Chemistry Survival Packet

© Glenbrook South High School, 2009-2010

Course Description

Welcome to Honors Chemistry! Honors Chemistry is a first year accelerated high school chemistrycourse devoted to understanding the concepts and principles which underlie all chemical phenomena.The primary focus of the course is to construct accurate mental models which appropriately describe

chemical behavior and chemical reactions. A continual emphasis will be placed on the importance ofmicroscopic behavior to explain macroscopic observations. The invisible - the world of atoms andmolecules - are used to explain the visible - the world we can touch, feel and see. This connection between the microscopic and the macroscopic demands that a student of chemistry learn the underlying behavior of atoms and molecules and the rationale for believing in such an unseen world. These beliefsabout how atoms and molecules behave are part of the concepts of chemistry. Efforts are made to providerepeated review and recycling of the major concepts, to provide opportunities to explore concepts inmultiple modes of representations (verbal, pictorial, graphical, numerical, audio-visual, etc.), and toutilize a developmental approach which relates new concepts to previously learned concepts. The goal ofthis instructional strategy is to assist the student in constructing an internalized and conceptualunderstanding of the world of chemistry.

GradingYour grade in Chemistry will reflect your ability to accomplish the objectives of the course. Thus, theoverwhelming majority of your grade will be based upon homework, lab reports, quiz and test scores,and projects. Much like most courses at GBS, grading in Chemistry is based upon a point system where astudent earning 90% or more of the possible points will receive an A; a student earning 80-90% of thepossible points receives a B; etc. While it is difficult to pre-tell exactly what percentage of the total pointswill be attributed to homework, labs, quizzes, tests, and quarter projects, the following approximationscan be made.

WebAssign Homework Assignments ~20 %Labs & Reports ~20 %Quizzes and Tests ~60 %

Grades are not weighted. All the points are placed in the same pot and totaled to determine your grade.

HomeworkStudents can expect daily homework – approximately 30 minutes per evening. Homework mightconsist of readings from the textbook, completion of lab reports, and online WebAssignassignments.

WebAssignGBS Chemistry teachers will be using an online homework delivery system known asWebAssign. The WebAssign web site can be found at http://www.webassign.net. To log on,use the following information:

Username: (use your GBS student ID#)Institution: glenbrooksouth.il

Password: (use your GBS student ID#)

Once you have logged on, you can change your password to anything you wish by clicking on the MyOptions button.

Homework assignments on WebAssign consist of a collection of questions which can be answered online.Upon answering a question and submitting the answer, immediate feedback is provided. You areusually allotted more than one opportunity to get a question correct, allowing you an opportunity to missand correct an answer. Assignments often stretch over several days, allowing you a chance to plan a





strategy/schedule for their completion. Scores on WebAssign assignments will be scaled; for instance, a30-pt WebAssign assignment might be worth 6 points in the gradebook.

Lab BlabLab work will be frequent. Each lab involves some form of a write-up or report. You will usuallywork in assigned lab groups of no more than 4 students. Each student completes their ownreport; while the data may be identical to your partners, explanations and conclusions should beoriginal work. Lab reports will be placed within a course notebook. Separate directionsregarding lab reporting and the course notebook are provided elsewhere in this packet.Directions for the reports will be provided on a lab-by-lab basis.

Late WorkIt is important in chemistry to be prompt, proactive and in charge of your learning. As such, it isexpected that you complete homework and labwork by the assigned due dates. Late work (withthe exception of those caused by absences) will receive a grade of no higher than a C.

Teacher Contact InformationOffice Phone: 847-486-4613Email: [email protected] Websites: http://gbschemphys.com/honchem/index.html

http://www.webAssign.net





The Course Notebook

Introduction

Chemistry students in the Honors Chemistry course will need to acquire a dedicated coursenotebook for use in both the lab and the lecture/demonstration/discussion part of the course.Because it will be collected quite frequently for grading purposes, the notebook must bededicated to Chemistry; there should be no Math work, Chemistry work, English work, etc. in thenotebook. Virtually any notebook will do; though it is recommended that it containapproximately 100 pages to document your work on the approximately than 50 labs performed inthe course. Not only will you use the course notebook to document your work in the lab, you willalso use it to keep notes on your learning, whether from textbook reading, classroom discussionor classroom lecture/demonstrations. The notebook will become a central tool to your learning; itwill also comprise a good portion of the manner in which your performance and learning will beassessed in the course.

What's It All About?

Chemistry is not a spectator sport. Those students who approach chemistry in passive mode will beless thrilled and most disappointed by the course. Chemistry involves involvement! It demands aproactive approach to learning. It demands pondering, thinking, problem-solving, inquiring. To be successful, you will have to both sort it all out and put it together. The course notebookrepresents an attempt to assist you in the task of being involved, being active, and beingthoughtful. It should help you to sort it all out and put it together.

Perhaps the location in the room where you will be most on your own and most active will be inthe laboratory. You won't be alone in the lab, but you will be on your own - on your own toponder a question, to adopt an approach to answer it, to collect some data and to sort out themeaning of what the data says about the answer to the question. Science happens in the lab. Weask questions whose answers are found through observation, measurement and data analysis.This is what science education should be all about - training students to think like scientists andto engage in the types of activities which scientists engage in. In this course, you will be quiteactive in the lab, involved in a question, pondering and thinking through the results, anddetermining the answer to the question.

Your course notebook will be part lab notebook. Each of the approximately 50 labs will involvethe completing of a lab report. These lab reports will be placed in your lab notebook. You willrecord your data, write your conclusions and discuss your results in the lab portion of yourcourse notebook. General guidelines for reporting on your labs are found on the page titled theLab Reporting Process. You should read this page several times and tape it into the front of yourlab notebook for ready and frequent access. Specific guidelines for each lab will be handed out ona unit-by-unit basis.

For now, at the onset of the course, it is simply important that you understand that thelaboratory is sacred. It is the place in the room where it is guaranteed that the student becomesan active participant. It is the place where the student becomes engaged in the doing of science.At the onset of the course, you will need to adopt the posture that there are answers that can befound in the back of the room - in the laboratory. In the laboratory, you will be engaged in one ofthe most important activities of science – asking and answering a question through observation,measurement and data analysis.

Left Side - Right Side

Your course notebook will be part lab notebook and part lecture notebook. Lab and lecture.These are two entirely separate activities. One is very active; the other much more passive. Oneis a lot of labor; the other is a lot of oratory (at least on the part of the teacher). While every effortis made to make the back of the room and the front of the room seamlessly integrated, the





activities that occur in each part are different in nature. In your course notebook, you willdocument your activities in the course – whether it is a lab in the back of the room or alecture/demonstration/discussion in the front of the room. And because the activities are quitedifferent, we will document it on different halves of the page. The right side of the page ( front ofeach sheet of paper) will be reserved for lab work. The left side of the page (the back of each sheet)will be reserved for the front of the room (class notes, book notes, practice problems, discussionquestions, etc.). When your course notebook is submitted for grading, the right side of the pages

will be given careful scrutiny. Your lab grade in the course will be based on the reports whichappear on the right side of every page.

If you are in the back of the room and making observations and recording measurement, you aredoing right side work. Document this work on the right side of the page in one of the foursections of the lab – Purpose, Data section, Conclusion or Discussion of Results. If you come tothe end of the page, you will turn the page over and continue recording your data andobservations on the right side of the page (not the back of the page you were just writing on).Suppose you are in the front of the room and we are discussing the lab ( post-labbing); andsuppose you whish to take a note or two on what your teacher is saying; you would be recordingthose notes on the left side of the page. Your teacher’s ideas and comments are never included inyour lab report (the right side of the page); if you wish to annotate something he says, place it onthe left side of the page. If your teacher starts the period by doing some board work – introducingor developing a topic, then you would be recording notes on the left side of the page.

Finding What You Need When You Need It!

As mentioned earlier, specific guidelines for each lab will be handed out on a unit-by-unit basis.The guidelines provide the title of the lab, the question that we are trying to answer and thepurpose of the lab, and a short description of what the lab report should include. Read thesedescriptions carefully; failing to include what is requested in the description will result in a lowgrade on the lab. Occasionally, you will be provided with a diagram, a data table or a graph thatwill form the basis of the Data section of your lab. These will be provided on a unit-by-unit basis.When the time comes for the lab, you should cut them out and tape them into the Data section ofyour lab report. If it doesn’t fit completely into your lab, simply tape one half of it into thenotebook and fold the other half over so that it does fit (some of these things you could figure outon your own). Copies of these pages are maintained here on the course website for easy printing

in the event that yours becomes lost; such copies are best accessed using the Labs link on the sidenavigation menu. Near the end of the unit, you will be given a grading sheet. This grade sheetidentifies the point value of each lab and describes how the lab will be graded. If you miss a labdue to an absence, you should consult the Makeup Labs web page in order to find out how youwill make it up.

Post-Lab Check Ups

On occasion you will be given a short assessment on your activities in lab. The assessment will bein the form of a post-lab checkup. It will consist of a series of questions about the lab activity thatwill provide feedback to each of us as to the type of understanding that resulted from the lab.These post-lab check ups will typically be done in class at the beginning o the period. You will beable to use your lab notebook on a post-lab checkup.





Lab Reporting Process

Each lab report included in your course notebook will be organized in a similar manner. Thereports will be divided into labeled sections with each section intended to accomplish a specificpurpose. The sections described below will almost always be included. Study each description,

tape into the front of your course notebook and refer to it often as you progress through thecourse.

Title The title marks the beginning of a lab. It should be clearly written at the beginning of the lab. Usethe title provided by the teacher.

Purpose Labs ALWAYS center around a question which is being investigated. The question is written asa purpose statement and included in the Purpose section. The Purpose section should be clearlylabeled as Purpose and include the purpose statement provided by the teacher.

Data

The Data section includes a clear and organized documentation of the observations andmeasurements that were made during the lab. The Data section may include a table ofmeasurements organized in rows and columns with the column headings indicating thequantities being measured. Data sections may include diagrams of an experimental set-upwith observations recorded on the diagram. The use of sentences and lengthy paragraphs is notnecessary. Elaborate discussions are discouraged. But clearly labeled and documented findingsare essential. These findings become the evidence which allow you to draw a conclusionrelated to the question described by the Purpose.

The Data section will often include calculated data. Work should be shown for each type ofcalculation that is performed. If the same type of calculation is repeatedly performed, the workonly needs to be shown once. This work should be clear and labeled.

The Data section often includes a graph. The axes of the graph should be clearly labeled. When

the graph is a representation of collected data, you will often be asked to determine the slope,y-intercept, regression constant and equation. The equation is often written in slope-interceptform. The equation should include symbols for the variables being plotted – not the traditionaly and x often used in math class.

The Data section will often include Class Data in addition to individual lab group data. ClassData should be clearly labeled to distinguish it from data collected by your lab group.

Conclusion If labs are thought of as centering around the investigation of a question, then the conclusionincludes the answer to that question. The Conclusion statement(s) (the answer to the lab)ALWAYS relates to the Purpose statement (the question of the lab). A Conclusion is longenough to completely answer the question(s) that is (are) introduced in the Purpose section.

Conclusions should always include complete thoughts written using complete sentences.

On occasion, you will be asked to write a Conclusion/Discussion. A Conclusion/Discussionmay be slightly lengthier and includes more explaining or describing. When asked to write aConclusion/Discussion, you will be provided clear directions about what to write about.

Discussion of Results Many labs will include a Discussion of Results section. The Discussion of Results sectionincludes an explanation of how the collected data provides logical and reasonable support for





the statement found in the Conclusion. The Discussion of Results should be clear, specific, andreasonable. It is often a lengthy section of several sentences and even paragraphs. It is anopportunity for a student to express their understanding of the clear and logical line connectingthe evidence (Data section) to the verdict (Conclusion section). In the Discussion of Resultssection, the student writes, explains, elaborates, supports and cites evidence from the Datasection. The student describes how the observations and collected data support the conclusion,citing specific examples as evidence. The student may describe what would have been

observed if a contrary conclusion were to be drawn and show how those observations were notmade. The student may identify data that seem inconsistent with the conclusion and explainwhy such data are not swaying Conclusion in a different direction.

A Discussion of Results section sometimes includes an error analysis. In an error analysis, thestudent evaluates the reliability of the data. An error analysis is a response to the question“How well did I do?” Expectations or theories (found in textbooks) may be introduced and theconsistency between the experimental findings and the theory is discussed. If there is anaccepted answer to the question that involves a determined quantity, a percent errorcalculation is often performed (see bottom of page). If two values are being compared (perhapsa class average of a determined quantity and an individual lab group’s value), a percentdifference calculation is often performed (see bottom of page). An error analysis will oftenidentify specific data trials which are in error, describe the manner in which they err from theexpected results and attempt to explain the cause of such errors.

Additional Information Lab reports should only occupy the right-side of your two-faced course notebook (i.e., the front side of each page). The left side of the pages (the back side of each page) is for class notes, notesfrom post-lab discussions, responses to required Discussion Questions, solutions to sampleproblems done in class and book notes. A lab report does not need to begin on its own page; itmay begin following the ending of the previous lab. While a lab report is by no means an artproject, thought should be given to how you will lay it out on a page so as to efficiently use theprovided space without sacrificing readability. Think about where you will fit the Data table,any required graphs, the Conclusion and the Discussion of Results. Every lab in every unit willcome with a paragraph identifying the title and the purpose and describing the requirementsfor a complete lab report. For some labs, diagrams, graphs, data tables and other additions will

be provided. These must be taped into the course notebook. If the taped in addition is too big tofit the allotted space, then tape in one half of it and fold over the other half so that it fits.However you do you lab reports, learn to have fun with it and to personalize it in your ownway. But most of all, use it as a method of documenting and communicating your work in thelab.

Equations for calculating percent error and percent difference:

% error = | theoretical value – experimental value | / theoretical value * 100%

% difference = | class value – individual value | / ave. of class and individual value * 100%

OR % difference = | value 1 – value 2 | / ave. of values 1 and 2 * 100%





Henderson's Incomplete List of Frequently Used AbbreviationsAn Explanation of Comments Made on Graded Work

A Awesome: I've seen a lot of good work in my day, but your work is simply AWESOME.

ATQ Answer the Question: Everything here is true. However, it has nothing to do with the question.

Here's a helpful suggestion: after writing your answer, reread the question and the answer. Thenask yourself: Does what I have written pertain to the question?

BG Bad Grammar: Recheck your work. If it makes as little sense to you as it does to me, then we both see the need for improvement in the grammar usage.

BS Be Specific: When making an explanation, be specific. Avoid "beating around the bush".

CE Calculation Error: The set-up of this problem looks perfect. I believe you have made acalculation error. Check the calculations.

CF Conversion Factor: Use (and show) a conversion factor for this calculation. In your conversionfactor, include units in both the numerator and denominator.

CK /CQ Chem King/Chem Queen: Because of your outstanding work, you will be endowed for a daywith the honor of being heralded as Chem King or Chem Queen. That's better than a DB or a DG.

CPP Carbon Paper Problems: The only way I can assess your effort in this lab is through the carboncopy you have submitted. Unfortunately, its readability is suffering. You either need to beginusing a new piece of carbon paper or press harder when writing. Thanks.

CS Complete Sentences: Cannot understand. Difficult to read. Points off. Mad! Thoughts notcomprehensible. Stop. Too early. It is difficult to understand incomplete sentences.

DB /DG Databoy/Datagal : You done good! Keep it up. And in the mean time, put this on your 'frig withall that other DB/DG stuff.

DUIt Don't Use "it": It helps to understand it when doing it if it done such that it does not encompassthe word "it". When writing an explanation, avoid the use of the word "it".

Exc Excused: Your paper was submitted late. Yet because of an excused absence, the late penalty wil be waived.

FLRG Follow Lab Report Guidelines: There are guidelines in this packet for how to write a lab report.This might be a good time to go back and review those guidelines so that you can do better on thenext report. See page 6 for the full scoop.

IC Inconsistent Conclusion: The conclusion you have drawn is not consistent with the data youhave collected. Your data show that the sky is blue; you concluded that today is Wednesday.

Inc Incomplete: Your work is incomplete. Perhaps you have not answered all parts of the questionor you have not completed every assigned problem.

Late Your work was submitted after the deadline and without excuse. My policy is to assess a penaltyof at least 30% the point value of the assignment. If the assignment has already been returned tothe class, then it will not receive any credit. See page 3 for the full scoop.

LRE Like Really Excellent: WOW! This is better than excellent. Awesome!

LSP Lab Safety Penalty: There's been a penalty assessed to your lab report because of a failure tofollow the indicated safety guideline.

LTPR Like the Pink Rabbit: Remember the Eveready commercial when the pink rabbit beginswalking across the screen beating that stupid drum like this sentence it keeps running on andon and on ... . Try a period and start a new sentence. Avoid run-on sentences!

ME Math Error: Everything looks good in this problem, except for a small math error. Don't blame your chemistry. Blame your math.





MEx More Explanation: Your answer to this question needs more explanation.

NC Not Clear: Your explanation is not clear. Either I cannot read it because of poor handwritingor the grammar is so bad that it is difficult to know what you are trying to communicate. It isdifficult to grade that which is not clear.

NJ Neat Job: Your work is very neat, legible,.and well organized. Keep it up!

P Perfect: This is perfect. I have reviewed it and not found a single error. Hurray!PBJE Peanut Butter and Jelly Explanation: Write more. Specifically. Missing steps.

PoLQ Post Lab Questions: You forgot or neglected to do the post-lab questions which were listedin the lab manual. A penalty has been assessed.

POC Piece of Cake: You make this seem easy. I think you've caught on. Way to go!

PrLQ Pre Lab Questions: You forgot or neglected to do the pre-lab questions which were listed inthe lab manual. A penalty has been assessed.

PSYW Please Show Your Work: When doing a calculation, always show your work.

RS Resubmit for Credit: Correct, complete, and resubmit this assignment. Staple thisassignment to your revised version and receive more credit. Is it a deal???

RTP Relate to Purpose: The Conclusion of your lab report should relate to the purpose of the lab.It should be concise and summative.

SeeMe You are not in trouble. For some reason, I need to talk to you. I might want to remind you of amake-up test. I might have something to say about this paper. I might have some money to giveaway or a pet bird to sell. Whatever the case, please see me after class. Bring this paper.

Sp Spelling: Ooops! Yu speled sumthin ronge.

SS Summary Statement: Either you are missing your summary statement or you have failed towrite an appropriate summary statement. See page 6 for more details.

T Title: You forgot to title your work.

TS Title Sections: Sections of the lab report should always be titled in a manner that makesthem visible.

U Units: All numbers (with few exceptions) have units to accompany them. Learn to includeunits on your answer. Failure to do so could be costly.

VG Very Good: Way to go!

WF Wrong Format: You have organized your lab with the wrong format. The correct format is :title, purpose, data, summary statement, and post-lab questions.

WUI Writing Under Intoxication: Same as NC.

Chemistry Survival Packet

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