Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Monday/Tuesday, November 15th and 16th

Welcome Back! I hope everyone had a wonderful little break.  Now it's time to get back into SCIENCE!!!

Wednesday was fun looking at the different reactivity (how quickly an element will engage in chemical reactions) of the different period 3 metals (Aluminum, Sodium and Magnesium).  We saw a nice fire and explosion with our Sodium/Water reaction.

Today we talked about what was happening.  How Sodium was losing an electron and its similarities to the other alkali metals.  We watched This Video, explaining how each alkali metal becomes more reactive with water as we move down the periodic table.


Of course, this is the exact opposite of the halogens.  The group 7 (or 17) halogens get more reactive as you go up, with Fluorine being the most reactive.  That's because it is the most aggressive electron taker.

REMEMBER, it's the electron configuration that will tell how a chemical will react.

I then collected your Elements II lab, so, if you didn't turn it yet, do so as soon as possible.  Grades come out this week and I need everything in.

We then dove back into our notes about basic atomic structure and how they're are arranged on the periodic table. 

We looked at the Atomic # and saw how it was different from the Atomic Weight or Atomic Mass.  We made answered questions about how many protons, neutrons and electrons would be found in certain elements.

You can read all this again if you missed Our notes the first time by clicking this link.

We're going to next look at valence electrons, ions and water.  These three key concepts will make understanding the chemistry of the cell much easier.

Until next time,

Monegan

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