Exam #1

I've heard several rumors of what the average was on the first exam. It ended up being a 72.22%

As a whole, the class should be congratulated on a job well done :)

I will discuss the exam results and try to predict a grade breakdown in class on Wed.

Lecture #14, Monday, October 26th

Lecture started with a continuation of the Bohr model. The Bohr model allows us to calculate the energy levels of the orbitals in a hydrogen atom. It is a simple model, and works very well for atoms containing only one electron (like hydrogen), but goes to shit for pretty much every other atom. This tells chemists a very important bit of information. If we have more than one electron, the electrons will interact with each other. These electron interactions alter the overall energy.

In chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 it's all about the electrons. How do they interact? How can we get them lower in energy? What happens when I gain or remove electrons? We will look into all these aspects of electrons as we go forward.

We talked about theories from the early 1900's that led to quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics describes the energies and electronic arrangement of electrons mathematically and allows us to analyze how electrons orbit the nucleus. The electrons orbit the nucleus in orbitals, which have different shapes and energies.

Be sure how to draw all the s, p, and d orbitals!

We can now get to the part where we can arrange the orbitals in increasing energy and start to place electrons in these orbitals. I briefly touched on this in class on Monday and will continue on with this discussion on Wednesday.

Lecture #13, Friday, October 23rd

Chapter 6 covers the electronic structure of atoms. The chemical behavior of atoms is almost entirely determined by the number and arrangements of electrons. An understanding of the energy of electrons and how they interact allows the chemist to explain many chemical and physical properties.

Electrons behave as particles AND waves. We first analyzed the wave-like nature of light and discussed electromagnetic radiation. You will be responsible for putting electromagnetic radiation in order of energy as well as calculating energy, frequency, and wavelength of any form of electromagnetic radiation.

I finished lecture with the Bohr atom and will continue with that on Monday.

Exam #1 Monday October 26th 6:30 pm

Your first Chemistry 121 midterm will be from 6:30 to 7:48pm on Monday, October 26th at the following sites:

Room 200, Campbell Hall for Laboratory TA's:
Dan Hyatt,
Chris Moody &
Mandy Still;

Room 170, 209 W. 18th Avenue Building for Laboratory TA's:
Xiaoyan Guan &
Kevin Sanders;

and

Room 100, Mendanhall Lab for Laboratory TA's:
Alycia Brown &
Martin Ross.

Lecture #12, Wednesday, October 21st

Today I finished chapter 4 by wrapping up the redox unit with reactions involving metals. Be sure to know how to interpret the activity series in solving these problems. The activity series will be given to you on the exam.

We are now covering chapter 6 (we will cover Chapter 5 the last week of the quarter) and I started this unit by drawing the various s, p, and d orbitals. You will see these orbitals on the first question of each quiz from now till the end of the quarter. I refer to the first question as "fundamentals," which is material that I want you to know when you leave this course, such as nomenclature.

We already know that protons and neutrons reside in the nucleus with electrons orbiting them. Now we will talk about the behavior of these electrons and just how they orbit the nucleus.

Lecture #11, Monday, October 19th

Today I finished solution stoichiometry by discussing dilutions and how to prepare solutions by dissolving a solid ion a volumetric flask. We then reviewed neutralization reactions and discussed net ionic equations involving acids and bases.

The next topic was formation of gaseous products as I gave three examples of such reactions. The last topic from chapter 4 is oxidation numbers as I went over the rules of how to assign an oxidation number to atoms and ions in molecules and how it is important to have a set of rules to indicate oxidation states.

I will finish up the oxidation state section on Wed and we will predict the products in a displacement reaction using the activity series. We will also start chapter 6 on Wed.

The first exam will cover chapters 1-4.

Lecture #10, Friday, October 16th

Today Molarity (M) of solutions was discussed. The molarity of a solution is defined as the moles of solute per liter of solution. I also discussed stoichiometry in solutions and it is very similar to what we see in limiting reactant problems from chapter 3, but with one additional step involving converting the Molarity to moles by multiplying by the volume.

Be sure you are able to do the problems like #59 on the additional problem worksheet, as they will be similar to what you will see on an exam.

Lecture #9, Wednesday, October 14th

Today I introduced solution stoichiometry by looking at Experiment #4: Developing an equation. We used the solubility rules to predict which ions will form a precipitate and based on experimental data we can conclude the proper ratio of ions that will form a solid.

We then talked about electrolytes and you should be able to identify if a compound is a strong, weak, or nonelectrolyte.

You should also be able to use the solubility rules to determine if a precipitate will form and you should also be able to predict the products in a metathesis reaction and write out the net ionic equation.

We then discussed acids and bases and you will need to be able to determine if a compound is an acid or a base and then know if the acid or base is strong or weak.

On Friday we will discuss acid-base reactions, discuss oxidation-reduction reactions and begin on solution stoichiometry calculations.

Practice Midterm Exam

The practice midterm exam will be held on Monday, October 19th, at 7:00 pm in 1153 Smith lab. You will have an hour and 18 min to complete the exam and after it is over I will hold a review session to go over some of the tougher problems.

Please know what your carmen ID # is because you will need to fill it in at the exam.

Lecture #8, Monday, October 12th

In today's lecture I finished up chapter 3 by doing an additional limiting reactant problem and I also talked about % yield. I then touched on Chapter 4 by introducing ionic solids and how water is able to dissolve most of them. The solubility rules are a set of guidelines chemists use to determine if a solid will dissolve in water. You will not have to memorize the table, but you will need to know how to interpret it. On Wed I will talk about Lab #4 and use it to illustrate some of the concepts in chapter 4.

At this point you should have all the homework sets complete for chapters 1, 2, and 3 and you should be reading chapter 4.

Office Hours

I received an e-mail about office hours today and the particular student wanted to know if they need to make an appointment in order to drop by. Office hours have not been attended very well this quarter and I want to be sure that it is known that I will be in my office on Mon and Wed from 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm solely to answer questions from the homework sets and work on any additional problems you have.

Coming to office hours is an incredible resource and I feel that most 121 students (from this quarter and in past quarters) don't take advantage of them. I asked some former students who never came to office hours in 121, but were always there in 123 why students don't come and the response I get is something like this:

Well, I never really knew how to study and didn't work hard enough at the beginning of 121 then kinda fell behind.

or

I was too scared to come and was nervous talking to you, but after I got to know you and how you interact with students thought that was silly.

Please try to pop by to office hours at least once during the quarter. Show me what you have been working on and I can help you improve on your study habits.

In my mind office hours are much more enjoyable when I have plenty of students working on problems. So please try to stop by :)

Lecture #7, Friday, October 9th

Today I covered stoichiometry of chemical reactions and discussed how to convert grams of a reactant to grams of a product. I discussed excess and limiting reactants and provided a few examples.

On Monday we will discuss % yields then start with chapter 4.

You should have 1-11 of the collected homework completed and can start on 12 and 13. In addition it will be very beneficial to complete the additional exercises for chapter 3. The quiz is based on both homework sets and is fairly long this week so you will know how to do the material coming in, especially the nomenclature.

Homework Set #3 Correction

For problem #4 in the laboratory exercises there was a mistake. Part (b) should read: To the sample from part (a) a student reacted excess sulfur and found the total mass of the Cu_xS product to be 0.6718 grams, instead of 0.1354 grams (the 0.1354 grams is actually the mass of the sulfur). I have fixed the mistake on carmen so if you have already printed that out please correct it on your homework sheet. Thanks, Dr. Fus

Lecture #6, Wednesday, October 7th

Today's lecture started by covering combination, decomposition, and combustion reactions and then I discussed Exp #3 and went over how chemists experimentally determine an empirical formula. I then went through some empirical formula calculations and transitioned into how to calculate a molecular formula.

To be keeping up with the material you should be working on questions 1-8 of the collected homework and should be finished with 1-24 and can start with 25-35 of the additional exercises.

Homework Sets are Posted

The Homework Set to be handed in next week in recitation as well as the additional exercises from old exam questions have been posted.

For the homework set you should have no trouble doing problems 1-4 from the textbook/lecture exercises, and from the additional exercises start working on problems 1-24. I will post detailed answers showing work for the additional exercises sometime later this week.

Tomorrow in class I will start talking about empirical formulas, which just so happen to be the topic of lab #3.

Lecture #5, Monday, October 5th

Class started with my finishing up the notes on nomenclature by giving the set of rules for acids. Now that we can name all general chemistry compounds we can start to see how these compounds react in chemical equations. I listed three types of reactions on the board: Combination, Decomposition, and Combustion and on Wed we will discuss the similarities and differences between these types of chemical reactions.

For the rest of lecture I gave out some tips of how to balance a chemical equation and we went over several examples.

Quiz #2 this week will not contain nomenclature, but you can be certain to see a big chunk of nomenclature on quiz #3. You are responsible for the ions and any compound resulting from the ions in Tables 2.4 and 2.5 and any complexes resulting from the prefixes in Table 2.6.

Lecture #4, Friday, October 2nd

After opening class with a mass % calculation, I began to lecture on nomenclature. You are responsible for all common cations and anions from Table 2.4 and 2.5 on pages 60-62, as well as all names and symbols of all the elements up to atomic number 36.

You will need to be able to be able to write the chemical symbol of a compound if you are given the name as well as give the name of a compound if you are given the symbol.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and if you are keeping up with the material you should have all your chapter 2 homework problems complete.

GO BUCKS!