It's come to my attention that maybe I should discuss more of the actual chemistry material that we've been learning in class. So with that, I'll get started right away.
In the past week we've begun by going deeper into atoms, molecules, and such. What I've been learning is contradicting what I've learned in the past. It feels a little confusing to have been told so much, and then to start referring things by the terms that were originally given during the scientific revolution. An example is how the words molecule and atom are used versus their modern 21st-century definitions. At the same time, I find it a little more beneficial to "reset" what I know and start from the beginning. This time, I will be learning on a slope so to speak. Meaning that I am not given a ton of information to memorize. Rather, I am slowly building my understanding with how these things work.
Besides that, something else I found was pretty cool was the volumes and ratios associated with elements and compounds. In my prior years I would have never guessed that there were such ratios that can define the pure substances that we use everyday. Plus, diatomic elements? That's another. Until this point, the elements and pretty much every related aspect of this sort of chemistry has been a big and scary subject, foggy and uncertain. It's still building on me, but I feel progress on the way. Some things I really need to check up on are the element symbols and names. I don't think I did well on that part of the assessment.
New seats? No problem. I don't really mind it, although I think I will miss the company of my tech-savvy friends at my table.
Exam? That was difficult. I really felt under-prepared. I think I could have done more to do better. At the same time I know I shouldn't complain so much because apparently I wasn't the only one with an okay grade.
It's good that you're acknowledging a need to focus on the main thing, chemistry content reflection, in your blogging. Your post did a much better job with this. It was really interesting to see how you had some "ah ha" moments and connected new ideas to old information. Yes, "resetting" can be a challenge, but I think that it helps us to build a context for what we are learning as well. For example, the fixed ratio concept is the entire motivation for chemical formulas in the first place. Ask anyone else why water has the chemical formula H2O and they likely will not know or they'll just say something like "there's 2 hydrogens and one oxygen." Being able to explain that the substance, in any amount, always contains a fixed ratio of the two constituent elements (as evidenced by electrolysis results) is really the reason why it's H2O and not something else.
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