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“In my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to getting the lab report done.”

- Mrs. Rathbun’s paraphrase of Mary Bennett in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice.

 

Traversing the winding, dim-lit passages of chemistry is smooth sailing with Mrs. Rathbun at the wheel, to mix metaphors. She thoroughly covers the material and provides answers to our host of questions, and her witty humor adds spice to the subject of chemistry. “Mrs. Rathbun’s personality is spontaneous and energetic,” TPS student Leah Ball explains.

 

Our classroom is always slightly chaotic, though it never completely subsides into anarchy. We spend most of class time rapidly scribbling down notes with pen and paper as Mrs. Rathbun annotates the class notes. The rest of the time we discuss upcoming assignments and answer short questions about the material we’re covering.

 

Our class’s workload is fairly normal compared to other high school courses with The Potter’s School, requiring eight to ten hours of studying per week. Chemistry is an exciting subject and presents challenges to us with every flip of the page.

 

TPS student Matt Weakley, a section two classmate, said, “Chemistry class is easy going, but focused.” We concentrate mostly on the essential topics, but class is still fluid enough to include additional interesting topics that breathe life into this otherwise monotonous, tedious subject.

 

“The material presented in chemistry class is challenging and requires lots of focus,” says Leah, “but Mrs. Rathbun does a good job of explaining what I don’t understand.”

 

Our textbook, Exploring Creation with Chemistry 2nd ed., by Dr. Wile (who founded Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc.), is easy to comprehend because Wile uses normal, everyday English to explain the detailed, often confusing concepts of chemistry.

 

For each module, which we take two weeks to study, we have three types of assignments: homework, a lab report, and the module test.

 

The homework consists of the Review Questions and Practice Problems in our textbook at the back of the module (approximately thirty problems); this assignment is open book and is self corrected by us students before submitting it to Mrs. Rathbun for review.

 

Then the module lab is due. This is a detailed description of what happened when we performed one of the experiments in our current module.

 

And then, just as our beginning-of-class nervousness has begun to wear off, we have a module test to turn in. This test, unlike the homework, is a closed-book and closed-note assignment.

 

We've covered a lot of material in class since we've started. Our first module laid a lot of groundwork. It covered the two systems of measurement, English and Metric, and introduced us to converting between the systems. It spelled out the difference between the terms “accuracy” and “precision,” a difference commonly overlooked. Last, it discussed significant figures and their relation to measurements and explained to us how a number’s significance is deduced.

 

Our second module emphasized the fallibility of scientific law, introduced us to our first scientific law: The First Law of Thermodynamics (which states that, while energy can change form, it can never be created or destroyed), explained the difference between potential and kinetic energy, introduced us to the three major temperature scales in use today (Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin) and how to convert from between them, and covered calorimetry, or the measurement a substance’s specific heat capacity, which shows how easy it is to change that substance’s temperature.

 

The third module explained and analyzed the various theories of matter that have developed from the time of the ancient Greeks to the present, introduced the Periodic Table of Elements, briefly discussed the various classification schemes the chart contains, explained three more scientific laws: the Law of Mass Conservation, the Law of Definite Proportions, and the Law of Multiple Proportions as well as Dalton’s Atomic Theory and his associated hypotheses detailing how atoms interact to form molecules, and concluded by introducing binary nomenclature (the system of naming of two-element molecules) and the difference between covalent and ionic substances.

 

Upcoming material in our chemistry class includes the difference between homogeneous and heterogeneous mixtures, physical and chemical change, the Kinetic Theory of Matter, chemical equations and how to balance them, the Mole Concept, and a whole slue of different types of reactions, as well as two experiments: 4.1, Separating a Mixture of Sand and Salt, which provides the hands-on experience of extracting two substances that are homogenized, and experiment 4.4, The Kinetic Theory of Matter, which demonstrates how molecules and atoms are always in constant motion, even though such movement is unobservable by the unaided eye.

 

Phew, it sounds like we’ve got a lot coming up! I’m definitely anticipating the new challenges that chemistry has to offer. TPS student Jenn Powell says that she looks forward most to “better understanding atomic and molecular structure.” Matt anticipates learning “the more advanced subjects [and] seeing how all the scientific laws relate.”

 

We’ve got a full year ahead of us, that’s for sure, and though we’ve learned a lot, tons more await our eager minds.

 

For all of us in section two,

Taylor Strube

 

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Anatomy English 8, Section 1 HS Chemistry HS Geography