As I reflect on what we did over the past week, I figured out the meaning of what all this "Relative Mass" and "Moles" nonsense is. We spend a vast majority of the week focusing on conversions between mass and moles and vice versa. We focused on worksheets, a lab, and a demonstration to help grasp the understanding of what moles represent, and how to calculate them using the periodic table. Overall, this week was set up to get us ready for our quiz on Monday, and most importantly, our test at the end of next week.
On Monday, we started class by doing a worksheet called "Relative Mass and Mole". This worksheet gave us an example using two different types of eggs, chicken and quail, and using the mass we had to determine the ratio between the mass and the number of eggs present. The goal of this worksheet was to see if we could convert specific units into other units. This led to a second worksheet we got, only this one gave us information on what a Mole is equal to. We learned that 1 Mole=6.02E22. We also learned that the amount of Moles in an element is equal to the Atomic mass of that element. For example, the amount of Moles in Carbon would be 12.01 because that is Carbon's Atomic mass. We used this information to make the conversions when it asked us to find the number of atoms and the number of moles.
The next day, we began to work on a lab. This lab was split up into two days, given the fact that we had to heat the substance over night. The first day, we were asked to weigh the mass of a beaker and the pour the Zinc into the beaker and weigh the combined weight. We then poured Chlorine on top of the Zinc. This made the substance turn a purple color that proceeded to fizz and bubble for a while. After recording the masses, we placed the beakers on a heating plate and left them there over night. The next day, we took the beakers back to the scale, and weighed the mass of the Zinc chloride. The substance was now a solid purple blob at the bottom of the beaker. To find the mass of the Zinc chloride 3 times, we had to heat the bottom of the beaker until the substance started to smoke, then let cool for a couple minutes and proceed with weighing the beaker. We repeated this process 3 times. This gave us a reason to use the conversions to find the amount of Moles in Zinc and Chlorine, and finally find the ratio, which turned out to be a 2:1 ratio. We finally analyzed the results of each group and made a table. This gave us a better understanding of how the other groups got their data, and how they applied the formulas.
The end of the week came around, and we continued our journey into Moles and mass. We finished the week off by starting one last worksheet to really get us to understand the concepts. We originally were going to have a quiz on Thursday or Friday, but Dr. J saw that many of us were struggling with conversions an Moles overall. I finally understand the formula to convert and when and where to use specific numbers. I am confident going into Monday's quiz and I hope that I will be ready for Friday's test. As I do final reflecting on the previous week, I realize that practice does make perfect. The worksheets need to be taken seriously, and with the help of fellow classmates you realize that, something you may not understand isn't as hard as it seems.
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