Half Lives

On this day, September 28, 2015, slightly before noon, American Central Time, in Mrs. Frankenberg's chemistry classroom at Francis Howell High School in the city of St. Charles, Missouri, in the United States of America, a number of students were given instruction upon how to calculate the amount of a radioactive isotope that remains radioactive after a given period of time. To do that, one must divide the original amount of isotope by two to the power of n, n being the number of half lives in the given amount of time. The formula is provided in the below image. Further clarification about half lives is supplied on AUS-e-TUTE's website.

http://www.coolmath.com/algebra/17-exponentials-logarithms/13-radioactive-decay-decibel-levels-01

Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Decay

Today in chemistry, we were introduced to three different types of radioactive decay. Similar to the alphabet, alpha decay was learned about first; it is when an atom ejects an alpha particle, also known as a helium atom, or 2 protons and 2 neutrons to lower its mass number by 4 and its atomic number by 2. It is portrayed by the first of the three below pictures. Learn the ABC's of alpha decay at this website.  Following alpha decay was beta decay. Beta decay is when one of the neutrons in an atom turn into a proton, and then a beta particle, an electron or positron, is shot out of the atom. The identity of a beta particle is clarified by the second image below. It raises the atomic number of atom by one, but its mass number remains unchanged. Go to hyperphysic's website for a closer inspection of beta decay. The final form of decay we learned about was the peculiar gamma decay. It happens during alpha and beta decay, but does not alter the atomic or mass number of the atom, as pictured in the bottom-most image.. Gamma decay emits high-energy photons, not any protons or neutrons or electrons. To go into the specific details of gamma decay, go to this quantum mechanics guide for engineers.




http://www.ooshutup.com/what-are-alpha-particles-and-their-properties-radioactivity/


http://spmphysics.onlinetuition.com.my/2013/08/3-types-of-radioactive-emission.html


http://chemistry.tutorvista.com/nuclear-chemistry/nuclear-chain-reaction.html

Beanium Lab

Today in Chemistry, we discovered a new element called Beanium. There were four different isotopes. We counted the number of each isotope and then calculated the percentage commonness of each isotope.. To calculate the mass number of each isotope, we weighed all the beans of one isotope together and then took the average mass of each different isotope. By using the mass of each isotope and the each isotope's percentage out of all Beanium isotopes, we then calculated the average mass number of the beanium atom.
To learn how to calculate the average atomic mass go to ChemTeam's website.

Nomenclature Blogroll

Nomenclature Blogroll

Teaching Kids How to Fail:
http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/blog/teaching-kids-how-fail

Wash Your Blues Away:
http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/blog/wash-your-blues-away-chemistry

Dilemma: How do we prepare new chemistry teachers for the 21st century classroom?
http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/blog/dilemma-how-do-we-prepare-new-chemistry-teachers-21st-century-classroom

So I wrote this project for my students - now what?
http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/blog/so-i-wrote-project-my-students-now-what-part-1

Why consider trying project based learning?
http://www.chemedx.org/blog/why-consider-trying-project-based-learning?_ga=1.186549289.1020699792.1442374327

Nomenclature Reflection #2

I thought that nomenclature would be easy, but I was sadly mistaken. What is ferrous? What is ferric? No one would guess that they are 2 and 3 valence-electron-ed irons. What is hypobromite? Did we ever learn about that? The polyatomic ions have different charges, and we have to memorize each of them!?!? How many hydrogen ions does an acid have? What is chemistry and why is it so confusing?

Nomenclature Reflection #1

Nomenclature seems very easy so far. To name these so-called Type I compounds, all you have to do is list the metal, then the non-metal with an -ide at the end. I hope that the rest of the year's chemistry is this easy. Soon we will learn about type II nomenclature. I wonder what that will be like; maybe it will cover covalent compounds. We also have a quiz tomorrow, but I won't bother studying because I'm too lazy.