Habit+of+Mind+2


 * RESPONDING WITH WONDERMENT AND AWE... WOW!**

//"The most beautiful experience in the world is the experience of the mysterious"// - Albert Einstein

I asked my sister once which science she recommended for me to study in 2nd semester of 10th grade. She said it was really all up to me, but she mentioned that if I was looking for... throwing things and calculating them to take physics, an explosion in the lab to take chemistry, and dissecting organisms to take biology. I ended up taking both biology (which I am thinking of majoring in) and chemistry, not only because it pairs well but ALSO because I wanted to see cool chemical reactions happen! In chemistry, we did indeed see many awesome chemical reactions using fire which I unfortunately was not able to capture as a photo, but I do have these cool souvenirs... (Left) As you can see... we're pretty excited. :) (Right) This was when we were burning sugar (it smelled like marshmallows)

Recently, we've been given cause to be excited over... the VSEPR theory (aka Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion theory). It's basically a technique for predicting the shape or geometry of atomic centres in small molecules and molecular ions. On the Chemistry Wikipage, there's a section that lead us to a tutorial which we used as a guide to do an awesome hands on experiment that involved sticking toothpicks in styrofoam balls (as you can see I am quite easily amused). Elizabeth, my partner, worked with me throughout the whole tutorial and we discovered the structure of compounds and how their electron pairs repel each other to the point where they symbolize different geometric shapes. We were, to say the least, amazed at how these compounds were structured because we've never seen anything like it!



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