Thanks to everyone that has posted recently or tried to post. If you are unable to get your post to work, you can always email me directly at jay_lance@L-Spioneers.org . Or you could send in a note with your son or daughter; I'm not picky.Today was an unusual day with a concert in the morning (which was awesome). During LGI today I finished discussion of my bike trip across the U.S. 16 years ago. I showed slides and told about my adventures. I'm not sure how much of what I said was believed, but it was all true.
In the O section today, we finally made it through both half-groups with the hydrogen bark lab. It is an awesome experience for my students; they become real scientists. Kudos to Cody Wilson and Josh Moyer who prepared over 28 test tubes of hydrogen gas today in only 40 minutes. This was their second time through, and they definitely knew what they were doing.
In the W, L, & S sections today we took our combining atoms quiz, after a complete review. I am proud to say that the average score for the test (in all three sections combined) was 19.8/20! This is what I'm after, and shows that when students spend time studying (even if it is teacher directed studying in class), they can do great things. We used the not-so-smart boards, which helped me to pinpoint weaknesses before the quiz began.
I ended class with trying to blow my hand off, or so it appeared. I did a simple reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to make water, and it is awesome. I put the two gases into a soap solution and made bubbles. I took a handful of bubbles and held it up to a lit Bunsen burner, and then WHAM! they whole school shook. At least I think it did; I had headphones as earmuffs on at the time. My hand survives, I believe, because the process takes gases and turns them into a liquid with a much smaller volume. So the explosion is not heading out, but rapidly collapsing. So far, I've been right. Sweet justice. Oh, and I didn't assign any homework for today, but we are taking another quiz tomorrow on counting atoms. I look for another 100% day.
