Science Unit 2 Reflection - Laura De Beer

  What do I know/ what do I want to know?

In unit two of science class, we learned about matter and how it does matter! We started by filling out a paper and writing down what we already knew about matter. At the beginning all I knew about matter was that there were three states of matter: Liquid, Gas, and Solid. I thought that was it. That was all I knew about matter. What I wanted to learn about matter was if there was one object that could change into all of these states.  Then there were the atoms. I would always hear people talk about atoms and that they were tiny. What I thought I knew about atoms was that they were smaller than the naked eye could see and also that they are everywhere. Something that I was dying to know is if there was anything smaller than an atom. That was all I knew. I had no idea what the greenhouse effect was or what the ozone layer was. I just thought there was one layer called the atmosphere.

   What have I learned? 

     Over this unit I learned A LOT! First of all, I found out more about matter and finally understood that there was not just three states of matter but six! The first time I heard about this, I could not believe in. I thought, what else could and object be? That was when I found out about plasma, Liquid crystals, and the Bose - Einstein condensate. I found out that plasma does not occur so much on earth and that it can be found in lights, that the Bose - Einstein condensate can only happen in a lab when at below zero degrees and that liquid crystals are a combination of liquids and solids! After learning all of these, I asked myself, is there any one object that can be in at least three of these states of matter? After research and brain pop, I found out their actually was. Water. First, water is already in its liquid state. Its molecules move in an easy pace, not too slow or too fast. If you decrease the temperature, the molecules will start moving at a slow pace, making it ice. The act state is gas. When the temperature increases, it turns the molecules very excited and makes steam. As you can see, they all change, but in none of these sates does the molecule ever change its DNA. It always remains as H20. At first, I had no idea what matter was though. I thought it was just what the object was, but later I found out that Matter is anything that has mass and volume.  I was impressed with all of that, until I heard more about atoms, matters building blocks. At first I thought, what? How can something make up matter, but now I know that these microscopic more than tiny atoms make up matter. 

     Atoms are microscopically small. No human eye could ever see it, and only one special type of microscope can see it. The first time I heard that atoms could be divisible, I was shocked. I thought, how could something that small be divided? It all started when a Greek philosopher called Democritus started his theory that atoms could not be divided. The idea came up to him when he asked his main question: Can everything be divided? That is why atoms are called atoms. It comes from a Greek word "atoms" which means indivisible. But what really got me insane was the fact that atoms are moving but you can't feel them. I was in complete shock when I heard about all of this. I also learned that an atom is made up of three parts: Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons. I learned that in the Periodic Table of Elements, the elements are sorted out by their atomic number, or the number of protons and electrons that they contain. In the atoms nucleus, the protons and neutrons look close to each other, but actually, it’s pretty different. Imagine a Football field. Now, picture a ball at one end of the field. Make that field five times bigger, and place another ball on the other side. That is how far the protons are from the neutrons, but just remember, this is not as big as a football field, but more than tiny! If you actually think about it, objects are made up of empty space! You might wonder, what does an atom equal if it is put together with another atom? A molecule! For example, in H20 molecule, there are 2 Hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. 

     Something else I learned was about the Greenhouse effect. I learned how Carbon Dioxide, Nitrous Oxide, and Methane are greenhouse gases and how they don't let the heat escape the earth. Something that I thought was very interesting was that without these gases, the Earth would be 33 degrees less and it would be too cold for us to live, but with them, if it heats up too much, it can cause global warming.

     Something completely new that I learned about where polymers. I found out that polymers are molecules made out of a chain of atoms, and that they can be found everywhere! For example, plastic, paper, hair, nails, credit cards, rubber, etc. Polymers were first introduced to me when we first started Lab 4. Lab 4 was a lab in where we were supposed to make Silly Putty, which is a polymer.

         

          Something else I learned in Lab 2, was about dissolving. Check out this PowerPoint I made about it: https://docs.google.com/a/graded.br/presentation/d/1rTfciLpDtmfi2VjoRrQ0SFJSCM_9IQov5OTornmAMsE/edit?usp=sharing

     The last thing that I learned about was the Ozone Layer. I learned how the ozone layer keeps us alive and does not let the sun fry us to death. I also learned about the certain chemicals that can really harm the Ozone Layer. Something else that I found out was the formula of the Ozone layer: O3. 

     Overall, in this unit I have learned a lot and I enjoyed it a lot!