Spring 2009 CH 302 Random Musings—March 24, 2009 1. Welcome back from Spring Break. One of the things that will amaze those of you new to college is how rapidly the last half of the spring semester disappears leading to final exams. For many of you it will be the most challenging academic experience of your life if you are in a bunch of science courses. I still vividly recall my own experience that first spring semester trying to do well in chemistry, calculus, biology, chemistry lab and biology lab plus two liberal arts courses. I don’t think I slept the week I had five finals in three days. So just strap on a seat belt and enjoy the ride. It will make what comes later in college seem like a walk in the park. 2. Starting four years ago I decided that my second round of children would not grow up thinking that spring break was when your dad stayed home and caught up on his e-mail. So beginning with New Orleans, and then the Smokey Mountains, and then New York, and now a beach in Destin, Florida, my spring breaks involve carting a very large family around in a minivan somewhere far from home. Below are photos of Andrew, post-burial, Maddie being buried by Nate Dog and Sam, and the family on a beach as a pirate ship passes by. By the way, it was my first spring break when I hung out where the college kids hang out. Just the family and a million frat kids from southern schools. And I don’t mean to demean their partying nature, but from what I could tell, it was mostly a bunch of kids lying on a beach, playing volleyball, and barbequing while drinking light beer. Seriously, is all that MTV over-the-top partying debauchery contrived--or are southern frats a bunch of losers like CNS students? 3. And how do I know CNS students are losers? Because I read your extra credits, and for the most part, 90% of you simply hung out with your families. I have enjoyed many of your responses, here is one I found especially amusing: You see when I went to school I bought my girlfriend a beta fish. She loved it and named it Squirt. It has been a long time overdue but the fish finally died this spring break. As I drove to see her at her college she called me, her voice sad and forlorn. Squirt was dead, and this was my chance. I told her to wait to flush him, because this was the opportunity of a lifetime. When I arrived I surveyed the lifeless body of her fish, both eyes were protruding and red looking upside-down from a glass of crystal clear water. I asked if she had changed the water of the tank recently. She had the night before, and Squirt paid the ultimate price for it. I sat her down and looked deep into her eyes, "Baby, the reason your fish died was because of the osmotic pressure difference between Squirts body and the water surrounding him. When you changed his water it rushed inside him and essentially blew his tiny fins to that big toilet bowl in the sky." With large sad eyes she asked, "Why would say something like that now?" I sighed knowing I would pay full price for the next words, "Because if I get you to say that you had no idea chemistry was interesting I get 3 extra credit points on my final exam….." Then we went and bought her another fish.4. So here it is, a final reminder of the EC instructions for the 276 of you who haven’t yet turned it in. Note the looming deadline. I have promised that there will be three extra credit opportunities this semester that will permit you to lower the cut scores for grades by up to three percent (one percent for each extra credit submitted.) Here is the first one. Extra Credit 1. To earn 1% of your course grade that you can add to your point totals for the semester, complete the assignment below and follow the specific instructions given. This EC can be used to calculate exemptions. Depending on your method of grading, 1% will be worth 7 points for exemption, 10 points for overall course grade or 3 points if the final counts for everything. Procedure: • Complete the assignment below. • Write it up (probably 100 words or so, but write as much as you want to tell the story. • Submit it to my e-mail address: [email protected] • IMPORTANT. You must title the extra credit: EC1s09 Spring Break • (If you do not use this EXACT subject you will not be filtered into the file from which I assign extra credit.) • Due Date: Friday, March 27 at 11:59 pm.. I am going to be strict about the deadline this semester. You will receive an e-mail reminder over the break and one in the musings afterward. Extra Credit Assignment: During spring break I want you to teach a science-hater something interesting about chemistry that you learned in this class. To get the points, the person you teach has to say to you, “gee, I had no idea chemistry was that interesting” when you have finished (you can make them say it even if they don’t mean it.). You can choose what you teach but it should be something of interest and utility that you have learned from your experiences with chemical and physical equilibria. 5. As I indicated in an e-mail over the weekend, Quiz 4 is on Thursday and will cover the 8 question types below: • assigning oxidation numbers • balancing redox reactions • identifying strongest oxidizing or reducing agent • charge calculation in stoichiometry • standard Ecell calculation • electrolysis reactions • cell nomenclature • relationship of E to G to K Two practice quizzes have been written in support of this quiz which I intend to be really easy, given the short time frame for gearing up after spring break. So really pay attention to the practice quizzes (the one in the portal and the TA quiz posted with the worksheets) to know that you are in fact prepared. 6. Travis will be holding a review session for Quiz 4 in Welch 2.224 (our lecture hall) from 7-8 tonight. I have it on good authority that these are valuable events.7. New course materials found, or to be found, under the worksheet link: • Just before the break I posted a delightful 30 multiple choice question survey of the kind of equilibrium calculations (acid/base and solubility) you would be expected to see on the upcoming exam 2. • A brief worksheet from 2008 on how to balance a redox reaction. • A very nice survey of relatively qualitative electrochemistry from 2008 that teaches the basics of what you will do on exam 2. • A
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