Cosmic Chemistry
Evidence of Work:
For this project, we created 3 seperate ways to represent the content. Those being a song / rap, nuclear balancing equations and a Flipgrid explanation of those equations, and a children's book. We all helped on each of the projects equally for the most part however, I worked more on the math and the children's book, Aneliese worked on the Flipgrid and the rap, and Kelsey worked on the rap and the pictures for the children's book.
Below is a collection of our 3 projects including the script for our song we wrote, the children's book, the flipgrid video, and the google document where we worked out the nuclear balancing equations.
Our Song:
Our Book:
The Completed Book:
The Math:
Key Concepts:
Atom: The smallest unit of an element that still has all the components of that element. It is made of neutrons and protons in the nucleus and rings of electrons surrounding the nucleus.
Ions: Atom that has gained or lost electrons which changes it's charge to negative or positive.
Isotopes: An atom that has the amount of protons but a different amount of neutrons (Same element, same atomic #, different weight).
Alpha Decay: An unstable element removes a helium particle and turns into another element. This stabilizes the nuclei.
Beta Decay: Decay where an electron is emitted from the original atom. This happens when a beta wave is emitted from an atomic nucleus.
Gamma Decay: Gamma decay doesn't change the amount of protons, neutrons or electrons but it does stabilize the nucleus. To do this an electromagnetic radiation at a very high frequency gives off high amount of energy that stabilizes the nucleus.
Half-Life: The time required for half of the atoms of radioactive nucleotide to decay. (Ex. Strontium-90 has a half life of 29 years)
Isotopic Notation: The way to display elements on the periodic table. The large letter in the middle represents the element. The bottom number represents the atomic number and the top number represents the mass number. The mass can change in an isotope but not the atomic number.
Electron Configuration: Is used to show where an element is on the periodic table. This is the long form which is harder to read than Noble Gas Notation
Noble Gas Notation: Takes the noble gas from one row higher than the element and add the remaining electron configuration to it. This is a more compact way to represent a elements location on the periodic table
Reflection:
What I did well: I felt as if I was able to assist my team in completing the work we needed to get done on time and to the best of my ability. At one point our group was far behind, but my group and I focused and were able to get things done efficiently and still produce high quality work. I facilitated our group to complete our work on time. Our collaboration when we were working was fantastic and it felt as if work was being done at a faster rate with our good collaboration. I also felt as if I was a good critical thinker for this project. I used that skill for the math section because I didn't know how to do those types of problems but using my critical thinking, I was able to figure out the nuclear balancing equations. I also used critical thinking skills to come up with rhyming words for the lyrics of the song. We made relevant lyrics that still rhymed and were catchy.
What I could learn from or improve upon: I felt as if this project was not my greatest work. I didn't do everything I could have. I could have written more for the children's story and helped draw or color the illustrations. Lots of work was saved until the last minute and I felt as if our group would have benefited from an extra day of in class work time that we didn't have due to the PSAT testing. Communication was lacking in our group and in the future I will look to improve upon that by delegating work to people and making sure everything is taken care of before the last minute. Time management was a large issue for me, I had trouble finishing work on time and I felt like we were constantly behind as a group, however as I mentioned above the work was eventually finished. If I had better time management, I would have never had to catch up which would bring the quality of work up.