Blog Archives

Video: “Does the Ocean Think?”

2/28/2016

Welcome back to school! This is a long stretch without vacations. It is the most productive time of the school year!

Right now, most school budgets are depleted for the 2015-2016 class year. My book, Chemistry on a Budget, contains inexpensive chemistry labs that could be useful. You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. Check it out!

http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html

There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report. This way the teacher has the option! Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout.

It will take a week or so to get to you, so Order Now!

*Some of you have purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !

Videos can be very useful to introduce information, or expand upon it.

“Does the Ocean Think?” , an episode of “through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman" (2014) is 42 minutes and can expand upon the importance of water to life on earth.

You may have access to it through your school’s library system. The full movie is posted on YouTube:

The Discovery Channel online presents a few smaller clips:
http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/videos/does-the-ocean-think/

A 3:30 minute segment demonstrates the hydrogen bonding of water using synchronized swimmers:
http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/videos/does-the-ocean-think/

Students could be kept on task watching the video by being assigned to report 5 facts from the movie.

This may be used in a Biology class, but the Chemistry discussion is very useful as well.

You may want to check around with the Biology and Earth Science teachers to see if it’s being used. Students tend to shut down if they’ve seen a movie already.

*Remember, this Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom. Remember, you can check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.

Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.

Remember, buying a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget can be very useful to your Chemistry classroom with labs and class article ideas.

Writing a review of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com is always appreciated!

Have a good week!

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Nuclear Waste and Lake Huron

2/20/2016

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I hope you had a great vacation! It’s time to go back to school and enter one of the most productive teaching times of the school year!

It’s about 6 straight weeks – take a deep breath, it’s going to be a long stretch! During that time period, you might want to consider taking one personal day to give yourself, and your students, a break.

Right now, most school budgets are depleted for the 2015-2016 class year. My book, Chemistry on a Budget, contains inexpensive chemistry labs that could be useful. You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. Check it out!

http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html

There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report. This way the teacher has the option! Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout.

It will take a week or so to get to you, so Order Now!

*Some of you have purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !

I have previously written in this blog about Nuclear Power and one issue of nuclear waste. These entries include:
Introduction to Nuclear Chemistry on 02/11/2015 ; Nuclear Chemistry -- Part II
(Fission, Fusion & Half-Life) on 02/18/2015 ; and,
Current Event -- Radioactive Waste from WWII on 10/30/2015.

A current issue about nuclear waste storage has developed between the two adjacent countries of Canada and the United States regarding an important source of fresh water, Lake Huron.

“Lake Huron is the second largest Great Lake by surface area and the fifth largest freshwater lake in the world. “
http://www.great-lakes.net/lakes/ref/huronfact.html

“Ontario Power Generation (OPG), which supplies electricity in the Canadian province, has long had plans to construct and operate a deep geologic repository (DGR) for nuclear waste at the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant near Kincardine. The DGR would be just under a half mile underground and store nearly 53 million gallons of ‘low and intermediate-level’ radioactive nuclear waste on a site three quarters of a mile from Lake Huron…that provides drinking water for millions of people in two countries.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/20/lake-huron-nuclear-waste-underground_n_5359955.html

“...Ontario Power Generation says the layers of rock where it proposes a deep underground nuclear waste storage facility are solid, stable and well-suited for the job. But what's at the surface and less than a mile away — the shores of Lake Huron — has people on the Michigan and Canadian sides of the Great Lake fiercely opposed to the plan.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/27/fears-surface-over-lake-huron-nuke-dump-proposal/3265423/

“ ‘I'm up in arms,’ said Michigan resident Sherry Hummel of Williamsburg. ‘It's just a dangerous, dangerous thing to do near 20% of the world's" unfrozen surface freshwater.’

For the 24 million U.S. residents who get drinking water from the Great Lakes, and those making their living from Michigan's $2.4 billion fishing industry and $13 billion tourism industry, it's a vital policy decision over which their elected representatives have no control.”

“OPG wants to bury approximately 200,000 cubic meters of low to medium level nuclear waste 680 meters – just under a half mile – below ground.” This article contains a diagram of the proposed site.
http://michiganradio.org/post/plans-bury-nuclear-waste-near-lake-huron-hit-new-roadblock#stream/0
“Canada's environment minister, Catherine McKenna, is now requesting additional information from OPG about the project including: alternate locations for the project; cumulative environmental effects of the project; and an updated list of mitigation commitment for each identified adverse effect, under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012.”

“ ‘One only has to look at other nuclear accidents … where human error resulted in an accidental radiation release,’ Kildee said. ‘Human error is always a possibility, and if an accident were to happen on the shores of the Great Lakes, a nuclear radiation release could endanger the freshwater supply for over 40 million people, both in the U.S. and Canada.’

Pavlov urged Michigan residents to write to [President] Obama and [Secretary of State] Kerry, asking them to invoke the International Joint Commission, a joint U.S. and Canadian agency that works to resolve boundary water disputes.
‘There's a 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty that was designed to resolve disputes on the waters of the Great Lakes,’ he said. ‘We have a mechanism there, and we have to use it.’ "
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/05/07/great-lakes-huron-nuclear-radioactive-waste-underground/70976000/

“A 100-plus year old treaty could act as the legal basis for stopping a proposed nuclear waste repository on the Canadian side of Lake Huron, according to one of Michigan's two Democratic U.S. senators.”
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2015/08/stabenow_nuclear_waste_bill.html
This article contains a map of where the proposed storage facility would be located.

Here is another issue that would be good for class discussion, an Extra Credit assignment, or coordination with the Social Studies department teachers. This is especially interesting because of the international aspect, border issues, and 1909 treaty being cited.

*Remember, this Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom. Remember, you can check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.

Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.

Buying a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget can be very useful to your Chemistry classroom with labs and class article ideas, especially at the end of the school year.

Good luck next week at school!

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gases in low temperatures

2/13/2016

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Many of you are enjoying a Winter Break, or at least a 3-day Presidents’ Day Weekend. It’s awfully cold where I am, so it’s good that you and your students can stay in!

Right now, most school budgets are depleted for the 2015-2016 class year. My book, Chemistry on a Budget, contains inexpensive chemistry labs that could be useful. You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. Check it out!

http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html

There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report. This way the teacher has the option! Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout.

It will take a week or so to get to you, so Order Now!

*Some of you have purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !

I have published several posts about the relationship of gas volume and pressure to temperature. For your reference, they are: Charles’ Law on 01/29/2014; Gay Lussac’s Law on 02/02/2014; Charles’ Law in Freezing Temperatures on 01/14/2015; and, Gay Lussac’s Law Demonstration on 01/21/2015.

These posts might be a handy refresher of labs or demonstrations for this time of year. One typical problem during this time of year is reduced automobile tire pressure due to low temperatures. Here is a brief article that might be useful for a homework assignment:
http://www.tirebuyer.com/education/tire-inflation-pressure-and-temperature

*Remember, this Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom. Remember, you can check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.

Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.

Remember, buying a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget can be very useful to your Chemistry classroom with labs and class article ideas.

Have a great Winter Break!

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carbon dioxide conversion to methanol

2/6/2016

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It has been another busy week! Again, I apologize for the delay in this blog post. I am going to start posting on weekends as of 2/14/16.

Most school budgets are depleted for the 2015-2016 class year. My book, Chemistry on a Budget, contains inexpensive chemistry labs that could be useful. You can buy it for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. Check it out!

http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html

There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report. This way the teacher has the option! Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout.

It will take a week or so to get to you, so Order Now!

*Some of you have purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !

Of concern today is the excess of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere contributing to the Greenhouse Effect.

Here is a diagram for a quick overview:
http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/global-warming-4.gif

“Fossil fuel is a general term for buried combustible geologic deposits of organic materials, formed from decayed plants and animals that have been converted to crude oil, coal, natural gas, or heavy oils by exposure to heat and pressure in the earth's crust over hundreds of millions of years.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/fossil_fuel.htm

These fuels are rapidly being used by an increasing world population with greater development of nations. This has brought about the search for fuels or energy producing systems.

This rapid production of carbon dioxide by an increasing world population has also generated a need for an economical process to convert carbon dioxide to methanol, an alternate fuel for use that is renewable.

“The need for a carbon-sucking machine is easy to see. Most technologies for mitigating carbon dioxide work only where the gas is emitted in large concentrations, as in power plants. But air-capture machines, installed anywhere on earth, could deal with the 52 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions that are caused by distributed, smaller sources like cars, farms, and homes. Secondly, air capture, if it ever becomes practical, could gradually reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As emissions have accelerated—they’re now rising at 2 percent per year, twice as rapidly as they did in the last three decades of the 20th century—scientists have begun to recognize the urgency of achieving so-called “negative emissions.” ”
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531346/can-sucking-co2-out-of-the-atmosphere-really-work/

“Over the past several years, chemists have been investigating various ways of recycling CO2 into useful products. For example, treating CO2 with hydrogen gas (H2) can produce methanol, methane (CH4), or formic acid (HCOOH). Among these products, methanol is especially attractive because of its use as an alternative fuel, in fuel cells, and for hydrogen storage. “
http://phys.org/news/2016-01-carbon-dioxide-captured-air-methanol.html

The following paper outlines several carbon capture techniques being investigated. It is probably too challenging for most of your students, but I include it for your reference:
http://www.slideshare.net/madhurachincholi/yourprezi-45858136

Recently, “researchers…have directly converted carbon dioxide from the air into methanol at relatively low temperatures. … The researchers bubbled air through an aqueous solution of pentaethylenehexamine (or PEHA), adding a catalyst to encourage hydrogen to latch onto the CO2 under pressure. They then heated the solution, converting 79 percent of the CO2 into methanol. Though mixed with water, the resulting methanol can be easily distilled…The new process was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on Dec. 29. “
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160202143949.htm

This is an exciting development, although it does need to be replicated by other scientists and eventually applied at a larger scale.

Here is an article from ChemistryWorld summarizing the development of this process which also and shares concerns about the problems/possibilities:
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2016/01/fuel-air-carbon-dioxide-capture-methanol-renewable-energy

What’s interesting about these articles is the use of various terms such as “catalyst”, the choices in the conversion such as pressure and temperature (think about The Haber Process) and the various organic compounds being used. This could be a useful extra topic while discussing the topics of Kinetics and Equilibrium.

*Remember, this Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom. Remember, you can check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.

Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.

Buying a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget can be very useful to your Chemistry classroom with labs and class article ideas.

Writing a review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com is always welcome!

Have a good week!

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Video: “Does the Ocean Think?”

Nuclear Waste and Lake Huron

gases in low temperatures

carbon dioxide conversion to methanol

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