Throughout this year in Chemistry, We worked on 3 main projects. First, we started the SWPPP project, or the Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan project which carried on throughout the whole year. This project was an internship with the City of San Marcos, where we had to identify issues with out schools storm water runoff systems and attempt to brainstorm and even implement both source and treatment control. During this project, I took the role of the drain sampling coordinator within my group. I put in a lot of effort into this project during the beginning and end although I feel I didn't have a lot to do during the middle, through my position in my group, and even helping a peer to prepare a small portion of the SWPPP document. I also opted into helping to presenting our project to the San Marcos City Council. Overall, I have put a decent amount of effort into the SWPPP project over the span of the year.
The second project that we did in chemistry this year was the Poison/Toxin project. For this project, we could pair up with a peer of our choice and research a predetermined toxin from a list provided by the teacher. I challenged myself in this project by picking a toxin that wasn’t on the list given to us by Ms Lyman. My partner and I found out, through while researching, that Botulinum is used in the common surgical injection Botox. My partner and my product for this project was a cartoon strip that I spent a lot of time on, got critique on and revised many times. Both my partner and I put a good amount of effort into this project and it is evident in our product, as well as our research.
Finally, our last project of the year was the mad science reaction. In this project, we got to choose a chemical reaction to research and actually perform the experiment in front of the class. During this project, some of the chemistry concepts we got to practice were, Stoichiometry, Balancing Equations, finding Limiting Reactants, and for me, the challenge that I took on was learning more about the compression ratios of engines and why they need higher octane fuel. The reaction that I chose to do was Ethanol combustion reaction. I learned a lot about how ethanol burns faster and hotter than gasoline and it performs better in race cars. That’s why they use it in NASCAR. Throughout the whole project, I put in a lot of effort, the only thing I would change, is preparing for my demonstration more than I did previously. I feel like the demonstration lacked some filling, it felt very short for me. But otherwise I did a good job and put in a lot of effort.
I really didn’t have a problem with the structure/ order of the projects, the only thing that I would change is to shorten SWPPP. I think this because it felt very long and not as exciting as the rest of the work.
One of the main general learning practices that I hope to use more next year is to procrastinate less and take advantage of studying at school as well as working at home to stay ahead in class. If I utilize my time in school as well as the time I have out of school, I will be much more successful in what I do. Especially if I want to take some Honors courses next year.
I learned a lot about myself this year in Chemistry, but I think that my biggest takeaway would be that I am not really interested in. In the SWPPP project as well as some of the other projects I was uninterested and didn’t have a great time. I can’t see myself pursuing a career in this field. Even though I was successful with helping a little bit to write the official SWPPP document which I helped to share with City Council of San Marcos.
I liked the format of Chemistry this year for the most part, but if I had to change anything, it would be the structure of the problem set packets. I think that next year's students could benefit from a checklist on the white board that could be updated daily/ weekly that lists all the packets that are due and that you could move onto if you finish the current one. Other than that, I had a great time in Chemistry and I didn’t have any problems with the format of the class.
The greatest connection between Chemistry and my own life that I discovered was Chemistry itself. I am not very interested in Chemistry, and I am definitely not seriously considering pursuing a career relating to Chemistry in the future. However, I was able to get a really good understanding of the concepts that I learned this year, and I am very interested in learning more in the future.
I hope that next years SWPPP interns utilize all of the information and tools that our generation have prepared for them. I want to see them make changes outside of school as well as in school. I also am curious about how the internship is going to go next year, and what they are going to work on. I think that they should start off learning the basics of SWPPP, then move into picking up the slack of our class and continue the SWPPP greatness.
The second project that we did in chemistry this year was the Poison/Toxin project. For this project, we could pair up with a peer of our choice and research a predetermined toxin from a list provided by the teacher. I challenged myself in this project by picking a toxin that wasn’t on the list given to us by Ms Lyman. My partner and I found out, through while researching, that Botulinum is used in the common surgical injection Botox. My partner and my product for this project was a cartoon strip that I spent a lot of time on, got critique on and revised many times. Both my partner and I put a good amount of effort into this project and it is evident in our product, as well as our research.
Finally, our last project of the year was the mad science reaction. In this project, we got to choose a chemical reaction to research and actually perform the experiment in front of the class. During this project, some of the chemistry concepts we got to practice were, Stoichiometry, Balancing Equations, finding Limiting Reactants, and for me, the challenge that I took on was learning more about the compression ratios of engines and why they need higher octane fuel. The reaction that I chose to do was Ethanol combustion reaction. I learned a lot about how ethanol burns faster and hotter than gasoline and it performs better in race cars. That’s why they use it in NASCAR. Throughout the whole project, I put in a lot of effort, the only thing I would change, is preparing for my demonstration more than I did previously. I feel like the demonstration lacked some filling, it felt very short for me. But otherwise I did a good job and put in a lot of effort.
I really didn’t have a problem with the structure/ order of the projects, the only thing that I would change is to shorten SWPPP. I think this because it felt very long and not as exciting as the rest of the work.
One of the main general learning practices that I hope to use more next year is to procrastinate less and take advantage of studying at school as well as working at home to stay ahead in class. If I utilize my time in school as well as the time I have out of school, I will be much more successful in what I do. Especially if I want to take some Honors courses next year.
I learned a lot about myself this year in Chemistry, but I think that my biggest takeaway would be that I am not really interested in. In the SWPPP project as well as some of the other projects I was uninterested and didn’t have a great time. I can’t see myself pursuing a career in this field. Even though I was successful with helping a little bit to write the official SWPPP document which I helped to share with City Council of San Marcos.
I liked the format of Chemistry this year for the most part, but if I had to change anything, it would be the structure of the problem set packets. I think that next year's students could benefit from a checklist on the white board that could be updated daily/ weekly that lists all the packets that are due and that you could move onto if you finish the current one. Other than that, I had a great time in Chemistry and I didn’t have any problems with the format of the class.
The greatest connection between Chemistry and my own life that I discovered was Chemistry itself. I am not very interested in Chemistry, and I am definitely not seriously considering pursuing a career relating to Chemistry in the future. However, I was able to get a really good understanding of the concepts that I learned this year, and I am very interested in learning more in the future.
I hope that next years SWPPP interns utilize all of the information and tools that our generation have prepared for them. I want to see them make changes outside of school as well as in school. I also am curious about how the internship is going to go next year, and what they are going to work on. I think that they should start off learning the basics of SWPPP, then move into picking up the slack of our class and continue the SWPPP greatness.