In the beginning of the week we came to the conclusion to Unit 5. I have to say, I really thought it was a short unit, at least compared to the rest. The material I suppose wasn't any different in general. What it lacked in quantity was compensated in quality (if that makes any sense). It seemed like that although there wasn't much to the unit, often times I felt the work to be somewhat challenging. Notably the chemical equation balancing and counting masses. The chemical equations were hard because I couldn't really grasp the whole concept where elements that are di, tri, etc. are differently worked that what you'd expect. The counting masses was challenging because I had to wrap my mind around a totally new concept that contradicted my earlier understandings that were established so long ago. I can't stress this theme enough. It is very strange, and instinctively I wan't to ignore it. At the end though, that's what makes me learn something new.
The rest of the week saw the introduction of Unit 6. From what I can foresee, this is about current and electricity. Before I discuss this, I will tell you I really don't have anything to base my learning on. That's good though; it won't be as challenging as before. I am eager to learn this 'new' material.
We started out with the concept of a charge, and the attractive, non-contact force associated with them. I though that was a good demonstration; showing how the charge has to be made. This led to a similar demonstration with the tape (I'm not sure how much further this was after the original demo). The tape demo was also pretty amusing because instead of showing just the forces and the production of charges, it also showed us the "negative" and "positive" charges that are mutually created. Of course, I was absent the day of explanation, so I'm not sure if that's a 100% summary. Regardless, it's still pretty cool.
By the end of the week, we had begun talking about electricity further and how electrons determine the "charge." This seems to make sense so far. A negative charge is made my a surplus of electrons, which are negative. A scarcity would be vice versa.
The last thing I can remember was the conductivity experiment. I kind of already knew what was going to happen, however I was quite confused when we used the zinc and the copper. I really expected zinc to work, but I guess not. I was puzzled by the copper, but I quickly realized that there must be a coating around the wire. Interesting that you can apply an insulator so discreetly.
Also, what ever happened to the conductivity tests with the liquids and the logger pro? Was this done when I was absent?
What about this???
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