Weekly Blog Post 10/20 through 10/27

On Monday, we began the week by reviewing for the exam on bonding. We reviewed amongst ourselves and went over a few problems from the review worksheet with the class. This was very helpful in getting to understand the concepts. That night, Dr. J put up a chat room in which we could ask questions of other students as well as Dr. J, which was extremely helpful. Being able to ask people questions you had rather than trying to figure it out yourself is super beneficial. Plus, it's nice to answer other people's questions to boost your confidence.

The next day we took the test, which was not extremely difficult but it had it's challenges. It was mostly conceptual, and I am fairly good at picturing things in my head so I did OK on it. I definitely mastered the concepts better than I thought I would be able to. 

Wednesday was mole day!

Dr. J made some delicious cookies and we had some hot chocolate while we talked for the whole class. We were assigned an essay about paintball and the role of polarity and hydrogen bonding in the paint balls and how scientists have made the paint water soluble without using water in the paint. 

We then started to learn about ionic bonding, which was an extended review of what we began to learn last year and had some more of it over the summer. It's not very difficult, but the POGIL we did covered a lot of material. I think I have a good understanding of ionic bonding so far. It's essentially just knowing what the tendency of each atom is; to become positive or negative. Just know that metals bond with nonmetals in ionic compounds. 

Last, we began a worksheet on metallic bonding but didn't get too far. I'm still pretty unsure about the whole thing, considering I only got about three questions done on the POGIL we got. The lecture and lecture quiz will help my understanding. 

My understanding of the material this week is good besides the metallic bonding. I learned a lot over the weekend (or, rather came to understand a lot) about covalent bonding through studying and the chat room. Those are very helpful.