Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Back to Chemistry for a couple of days

Well.  So much for skipping some of the more mathematical parts of Chemistry and just moving on to Biology.  Chapter 3 in the AP Bio textbook is all Chemistry.  Luckily, the work we did in chemistry this summer provided an excellent foundation and it gave us no trouble.  But now we are up to molarity and molality.  I skipped a few of the more mathematical topics in Chemistry specifically because we couldn't find an enjoyable book.  So today I was scouring the internet for websites that would explain moles in a fun way.  It took me a few tries, and I consider myself a champion googler.  I can't remember which search finally hit jackpot.  I was searching "fun chemistry moles" "easy chemistry molarity" "chemistry is fun" but nothing gave me that perfect blend of technical math and clear explanation like I discovered with Mr. Parabola Guy.

I gave up and went back to the textbook, only to turn back to the internet for another attempt.  This time we got lucky and found this site, which looks like it will be helpful with the math.  But it wasn't fun and basic enough so I bookmarked it for after we finish with this, which looks fabulous, but it sent us to an even more basic page about what a mole is.  We did half of that today after scientific notation, and I'm looking forward to using it to explain the relationship between moles and atomic mass tomorrow.

I love how all the sciences are interrelated and we can just pause in the middle to spend some time digging a little more deeply into some background information in another branch of science.

I love that we have no time pressure and no test pressure and are exploring what Chana wants to know.   I love that we can take 2 years to learn Biology and take detours into chemistry and physics.  I love that we found a great website for explaining the chemistry we were looking for.  I love the internet.  I love how Chana's mind has expanded.  I really would like to start thinking about how to introduce her to Torah on a deeper level.  We are in Nitzavim now.

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