HON CHEMISTRY: Can you guess what it is?/ It’s a picture of uranium ore under UV light. Cool, huh! Here’s our discussion on the rest of the properties of radioactive nuclides and the types of radioactive decay.

Great job on writing writing nuclear equations to represent radioactive decay! Don’t forget to memorize the nuclear symbols for alpha particles, beta particles (electrons), positrons, neutrons, and protons. Not nearly as bad as polyatomic ions?!?

Also, great start on half-life problems today! I love the way you were able to figure them out yourselves!! Let’s play with them some more after Thanksgiving! Calculators ready!!

HON CHEMISTRY: Welcome to nuclear chemistry! No, really – I think you’ll be surprised how much nuclear chemistry is already a part of your everyday life. And now you know where E=mc2 came from!!

By the way, when you get a chance, read about the life of Marie Cure – fascinating woman of science with an incredible story!

HON CHEMISTRY: Were you able to follow the connections the scientists made as they discovered the structure of the atom? Here’s the lecture from today. Do you think there could be anything smaller than protons, neutrons, and electrons? Hmmmmm……

Make sure you know the name of the scientists, the name of their experiments, be able to draw a diagram of their experiment, and describe how they interpreted the experimental results that led to their discoveries.

Don’t forget about the video clip we watched in class – and I’ve included a couple extra ones. they’ll help you review the different experiment that the guys like Thompson and Rutherford did. Click here for the video on the Cathode Ray Tube Experiment that Thompson did, and also for a little history on The Discovery of the Electron. Here’s the other one on The Discovery of the Nucleus.

By the way – how do you feel about playing scientist yesterday? How is what you did similar to the work of early scientists in discovering the structure of the atom?

flickr photo by Here’s Kate

CHEMISTRY: So how do you feel about being made from earth, air, water, and fire? Here’s the intro we did on how we ended up with the atomic theory. Had you ever heard of Lavosier, Proust, and Dalton?

Pretty impressive little theory that Dalton came up with, huh? Were you surprised as you made comparisons with the Modern Atomic Theory? Could you now take it a step further and show connections between the three laws we discussed today and Dalton’s atomic theory?