Students in chemistry teacher Sara Stewart’s class completed a lab on Nov. 5. They took four unknown compounds and tested them in different ways to determine if they were formed from a covalent or ionic bond.
“I liked watching the things [compounds] dissolve because I thought they would dissolve a lot slower,” sophomore Chelsea Billiouxe said. “We can try to see the types of compounds that they are made of.”
The tests included a melting point test which used a hot plate to melt the compounds and a solubility test to find out if they dissolve in water. Lastly, there was a conductivity check and use of a microscope to discover what the crystalline structure was.
“My favorite part was figuring out and deducing the different types of bonds and seeing like the stuff we took in our notes really come to life in the lab,” sophomore William Brandl said.
The students found the lab enjoyable, but also challenging when determining how each compound was bonded. Some of the outcomes seemed unclear, which made it tough for students to find the right answers.
“I didn’t like trying to decide whether they were actually dissolving in the water because it was really hard to tell whether they were dissolving or not,” sophomore Eleanor Pfeiffer said. “It was kind of the same with the crystal test because they were both really similar and yet kind of different shape-wise, so it was hard to tell which was which.”
Lab experiments are not just a day away from notes and lectures; they implement what students have already learned and bring it into a real-world setting. Lab experiments help them to learn from first-hand experiences and collaborate with each other to solve problems.
“It took what we learned in our notes and applied to an actual scenario,” Brandl said.
