Wednesday.....

Today in class we discussed the development of the Periodic Table, calculated the isotopic abundance of a mixture of nitrogen-14 and nitrogen-15, and developed the concept of the mole as a counting unit. If you're following along in the textbook, we've pretty much finished Chapter 2. Now, you're probably saying to yourself, "Hey, it's the 4th day of class and we've already burned through 2 chapters?!?!?!?!?!?" Yes, the first two chapters fly by VERY quickly, this is largely because Chapters 1 & 2 are a bit of a potpourri of little bits and pieces. If you've taken chemistry courses before, this should be review. If you've never had a chemistry class, this may seem to be a bit much. Regardless of your background, it's all about practice, practice, practice. We will be slowing down a bit as we move into Chapter 3 and beyond.

A few people have asked me about getting some help with the math involved in this course. This summer, I was made aware of a website that claims to address this very topic:
www.ChemReview.Net
I've looked over some of these tutorials, and they look like they should be helpful, so you might want to check it out. This website is a little more chemistry-specific, I'll do a little more digging to try and find a more general algebra tutorial. You can also come to me any time for help, either in person or via email.

Another resource is SI. Unfortunately, I forgot to jot down the location of tonight's SI session, so if someone could post that as a comment to this post it would be appreciated.

Also, tonight is the first Chem Club meeting of the year, 7pm in SL104. Come to the meeting to find out about what Chem Club is doing this year, what Chem Club can do for you, and what you can do for Chem Club. I've heard that there will be at least 1 interesting chemical demonstration at the meeting tonight.

Hmm, sounds like a good chemistry-related night. SI at 5:30, Chem Club meeting at 7.