Basic Chemistry Day

Honors Biology
8/27/13


      Monday was our second day of class in Honors Biology. During this class, we work in pairs on a two Bonding Basics worksheets. My partner for that day was Calvin Li.

      The first of the two worksheets was about covalent bonds. What Calvin Li and I first had to do was find the number of protons, electrons, valence electrons, and electrons to fill the outer shell for eight different elements. This was easy, for the # of protons and electrons are both equal to the atomic number, the # of valence electrons can be found by looking at the row it is in, and the # of electrons to fill the outer shell is simply the same as asking how many valence electrons could you add to the outer shell, where the current amount of valence electrons already exist, in order to equal 8 valence electrons in total. It is simply just 8 minus the # of valence electrons that that specific element holds. After this we had to draw the Lewis Dot Structure for a few covalent bonds. One of the examples was Hydrogen+Oxygen or Water. Calvin and I drew the Lewis Dot Structure for H2O as shown below.

      The second of the two worksheets involved ionic bonds. We once again had to find the # of protons, electron, and valence electrons for eight different elements, and did so the same way as in the first worksheet. But for the last column of the table, it asked for the oxidation # rather than the # of electrons to fill outer shell. To find the oxidation # for all of the elements, you simply must find the charge of the element. In the last part of worksheet two, we had the do Lewis Dot Structures again, but this time for ionic molecules rather than covalent. An example of an ionic compound that we were asked to draw a Lewis Dot Structure for was aluminum chloride, or AlCl3. Calvin and I drew this Lewis Dot Structure as shown below.

     After we completed these two worksheets, we were given a one question oral quiz, followed by a small 5 question multiple choice quiz. Luckily, I was able to get all questions right. After we finished our quiz, we got to be let out early for lunch.