13. December 2008 by admin.

Just wanted to congratulate all my 2008-2009 Gen. Chem students on reaching the 80% goal! Keep up the great work!

Applied Chem students–You can do it! Don’t give up. You just need to put more time into it and you will get your party too!

On another note, a great real world application to the chemistry we are learning. One of my students, I believe it was Josh, asked a great question in the midst of a polarity discussion.  He asked whether a really cheap and easy test to see if a substance is polar is to dissolve it in water.  I said, “Yes!” Next day, wouldn’t you know it, chemistry came to life in my room. Some lovably cantankerous student (Rebecca) decided to make a mega-spice-drop from many smaller spice drops during our molecular structure lab. While her offering to her Chemistry Maestro was greatly appreciated, and she exerted much self-control to put it into the trash can instead of on my desk, her work was not to be forgotten so easily.  Little did I know that her work had been constructed on a desk in the room, and its remains were already becoming petrified on the desk. Another student’s (Amanda) distorted face and slight heavings alerted me to the problem. I decided to try to clean it off with rubbing alcohol first (a slightly polar substance) just because as a chemistry teacher you have access to these chemicals as readily as water, and its more fun to clean things off with different chemicals.  It was not successful.  So I went back to the universal solvent, water. Now we all know that water is a pretty polar molecule with all of those hydrogen bonds within it.  The water worked like a charm, which confirmed that the substance was indeed a polar substance. The smell of spice drops diffusing through the air alerted me to the unknown material and the smirk on Rebecca’s face alerted me to the culprit. A great lesson in polarity and universal solvents.

Thanks to Josh, Rebecca and Amanda for giving me something to write about!

 God Bless,

Mr. Powers

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1. December 2008 by admin.

So here is the Chemistry(or not) flittering around in my head tonight.

Water is hexagonal
Tryptophan not so much.
Blogging is.
But why?

Happy Thanksgiving
Though it is past.
Another will come…
fast.

Water is hexagonal
Six-sided for those
Shape-challenged.
Actually water is
Hexagonal for all.
That is why we should like water.
It doesn’t discriminate on race or sex…
Just energy.

I apologize if you had to read that.  I don’t apologize for my bad poetry because that is just about all I’ve got, though sometimes it accidentally makes sense.

 Good Night and God Bless,

Mr. Powers

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