Phoenix

Phoenix,

On this webpage, I have put down some of the stuff we've discussed in class, as well as video clips and activities we've done. Read each section, and then answer the questions on the form I've embedded. It sends your answers to me.

The username is: rogersville The password is: student

for the Discovery Ed video clips. When you log in, just click on the video that's showing. Most of the time, I just want you to watch a certain section of the video. Then hit the back button to go back to this page.

I will catch you up on the Argument stuff after Thanksgiving. Come back soon...I miss your science brain! :)

We have started back with the Matter unit we began the other day. Remember the activity we did with the pink cards and sorted it as to whether we thought it was matter or not?

Look back in your SN at the 2 criteria we listed for something to have in order to be considered matter. media type="custom" key="24475892"

Scientists have been curious about matter for thousands of years. One thing that particularly interested them is how matter can be so different. For example, a rock and a tree are both matter, but they are clearly very different from each other. Consider gold and water. Both are matter, but very different. Ancient scientists began to try to figure out exactly what matter was made of. You need to know that these scientists didn't have access to microscopes, computers, internet, or even books. They could only use their own experiments and ideas to help them figure out what matter was made of. The scientists in this next video clip lived in ancient Greece around 300 B.C. (You will study ancient Greece next year in your World History class.) Watch this video clip to see what they thought and who these scientists were.

[|Ancient Scientists and Matter]

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As scientists conducted more experiments, and our technology improved, we were able to learn that matter is not made out of just 4 elements, but more than 100 elements. Watch these next 2 video clips. [|Introduction to the Elements] [|Introduction to the Chemical Elements]

We spent some time in class talking about elements that are familiar to us: copper, helium, iron, gold, oxygen, etc. We especially discussed Mercury. Go to this site and read the info about Mercury. It's really cool! (But toxic!) Watch the first video. You can watch the other one, too, but be sure to watch the first one. It's titled "The Periodic Table of Videos". The guy in the video pours mercury out into a beaker. We discussed in class that the vapors coming off of mercury are also harmful, so although it doesn't seem to harm him, it is very unhealthy.

[|Mercury Website] media type="custom" key="24476856"

As scientists studied these elements, they needed to come up with a way to organize them.

Watch this Brainpop Video about the Periodic Table, the system scientists use to organize the elements.

The username is: rogersville The password is: warriors [|The Periodic Table]

In your SN, in the Resources section, I put a copy of the Periodic Table in there for you. We will use it all year. Look at the Key on the bottom right side. This will help you with information about the table. Use the Periodic Table to answer the questions in this form.

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As scientists continued experimenting with the elements, they suspected that the reason elements were so different from each other had to do with their atoms. Remember that an atom is the smallest possible piece of an element you can have. Imagine if you were able to cut some copper down until you got to the smallest possible piece, so small that if you cut it once more, it would no longer be copper. This is what we call an atom. You will see many diagrams or models of atoms throughout your education. However, you may be surprised to know that no one has ever really seen an atom. They're too small! We have yet to invent a microscope powerful enough to do that. So....how have scientists been able to come up with these diagrams? They have had to do experiments that gave them clues about how atoms are made. Sometimes you can figure out things without observing them directly. For instance, if you come across animal tracks in the mud, you can figure out lots of stuff from those tracks even though you never laid eyes on the animal. You might could tell what animal it was by the shape of its tracks, you could figure out something about its weight by how deep the tracks were, and you could tell how long its legs were based on the distance between tracks. When scientists conducted experiments with different elements they were able to come up with ideas about how the atom must look based on the results of the experiments.

This next video is about the experiments these scientists did. It's interesting to note that as each scientist discovered another clue, we had to go back and readjust our idea about the atom. It's kind of like the Checks lab we did. Remember when we pulled out 4 checks and came up with our first idea for the family? Then when we pulled more checks, we had to go back and change our idea some to fit with our new evidence. This video is a little longer.

[|Elements, Atoms, and Compounds video]