The main ideas we learned about this week involved the making and finding of elements, finding the ratio of compounds, and we demonstrated that we know how to react certain elements together to create certain elements.  All of these aspects tie together to the Law of Definite Proportions.  The worksheets that we did in class all focus around this single aspect.
   To learn how the elements began being discovered and made we looked at a reading packet called Matter ; Atoms from Democritus to Dalton.  This packet went through the history of several different scientists and their personal stories of how they got involved in science at all, to how they discovered their own unique elements.

     This is a picture of the packet.  While or after reading this packet, Dr. J had us fill out a worksheet about the information we learned about.  This packet also had definitions of certain keys terms that are important.  These terms included atoms, compounds, and molecules.  This terms are very important to know and understand because they are the basis for studying chemistry.  It also taught us fundamentals such as how when reactants are present in excess of the fundamental proportions, some reactants remain unchanged after the chemical reaction occurs.  The reading used this informations to elaborate on how the scientists used these facts to base theories off of.






In the worksheet Unit 4 Worksheet 2, we were introduced to how to draw out a chemical reaction happening between two different elements, and having no leftover gases or molecules.  This also relates to the Law of Definite Proportions because ever separate atom has a certain set of each, which is the definition of a proportion.  While doing this worksheet, however, we did not realize that this is what we were doing.  This worksheet also mentioned some of the scientists that  we learned about, such as Gay-Lussac.  So the worksheet mentioned above and this one here are related or linked in that sense.  They also use the same type of vocabulary words that were defined in the above sheet.
This worksheet also helped us to learn how to work out the formula for the elements or reactants, we were drawing our or making.

The next worksheet that we did was Unit 4 Worksheet 3.  This worksheet was mainly about finding the ratios for each compound based on weight.  We did this to learn about how the ratios compare and bow to compare them.  We also learned how to figure out the simplest form of each compound by using the ratios and math.  An example of this is shown here.  By doing this we also learned how to write out the formula for each compound mixture we made.  The ratios and how the ratios are used, all ties back the the Law of Definite Proportions.

That is mainly how all of the ideas we went over this week are related.  

To help us understand this topic as a class, Dr. J had us whiteboard out some of our answers and review them as a class and discuss them.  An example of what a whiteboard looks like is here. 

This is how a standard whiteboard would look and then we would talk about them. 

     

     This week I feel like I understood most of the material being taught and I don't feel very insecure about anything in particular.     I just need to review before the test and I should do well.