Hello, I’ve started a new scimatics project called ‘Chemistry Stories’. Throughout this project I was tasked to make an animation that showed an answer to the driving question, “How do the electron arrangements of atoms determine the chemical and physical properties of elements and compounds?”. Within this project I created elements that helped me create a detailed animation about the electron arrangement of atoms. In addition throughout the duration of the project I was able to create a detailed answer to the driving question. I also met most of my goals to correctly obtain the curricular competencies.
The first milestone I came in contact with was “Project Start Mind Map”. To complete this milestone everyone around the room was given QFT boards and wrote down informative questions on them. I then went around the classroom to look at other’s QFT board to see what question I could include in my Mind Map. To start off a Mind Map we’re supposed to ask questions that we should be able to answer throughout the project. I feel I asked formative questions that made me curious about what will happen throughout the project and made them connect to different ideas. The answers to these questions are displayed throughout my animation and this blog post.
This milestone best used the curricular competency “Questioning and predicting”. This competency was used throughout this milestone because I demonstrated a sustained curiously about a scientific topic. This was done by my detail questions that were even based off of previous knowledge. I could have improved my use of this curricular competency by taking other’s knowledge and incorporating them into my own questions.
This project only had three milestones, but a lot of stepping stones. Due to this I will be reflecting upon many of these stepping stones. The first stepping stone I completed was “workbook 2.1”. This steppingstone was a workbook about the procedures we were supposed to take to work correctly and safely in a lab environment. This was the perfect pathway into the next important stepping stone “Investigation 2-A animation”. Within this steppingstone we had to create an animation that displayed the process of an experiment that was instructed in the 2.1 textbook. To create this animation we used the apple animation software: keynote. I think this animation was very helpful for my creation of the final animation because I learnt animation techniques that I was able to use.
Once that animation was done I was able to actually proceed with the actual experiment. The experiment was the process of the animation (so make sure you watch it!). We were put into partners, I was placed with Clare. To start it off it turns out the written instructions from the textbook was a bit unclear so we held the tube wrong. Then we had a bit of struggle in the beginning because it turns out we didn’t have a strong enough acid. We were given a stronger acid, which helped it bubble but it was a bit to late. So we didn’t have enough time to have that same chemical reaction as most of the class (but that’s okay because we knew what we did wrong).
Thirdly, I moved onto two other steppingstones “Workbooks 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4”. These steppingstones were other workbooks that I think really helped me build important knowledge to help me with the rest of this project. The 2.2 workbook overviewed the topics of how the periodic table is constructed. Then workbook 2.3 was important because I also learned how the periodic table corresponds to the amount of subatomic particles are in an atom along with the amount of energy shells. I moved onto the most important workbook, 2.4. This was super important because I learnt how electrons from atoms move around to from iconic or covalent bonds (which was basically the biggest learning factor of this project). This came in handy due to the fact because I learnt the electron arrangement of all of the atoms that I would be including in my final animation.
I then moved onto the second milestone “Storyboard”. This milestone was meant to have our idea’s about our animations placed in a layout so we were able to know what would be included in our animations. I created a storyboard about an atom that goes through a journey to become stronger. It took a while to draw out all the frames within the storyboard because I tried to make every model and bond correct. Overall this milestone was done with a sophisticated mindset.
In addition, this milestone best represented my use of the curricular competency “Processing and Analyzing”. The way I showed this competency was by constructing, analyzing and inserting models and diagrams. I specifically is this by showing the electrons arrangement with the different Bohr models I created in the storyboard frames. The way I could have improved on this milestone is by incorporating more models into different aspects of the story. Overall I approached this competency with extending opportunities in mind.
Lastly, I moved onto the last milestone “Animation”. To create my animation I toke all of the concepts from the storyboard I created and made them come to life. The first thing I did was draw each of the atom’s in notability. Once that was done I inserted them into keynote and started to add the backgrounds in as well. I also gradually placed magic move throughout the keynote. When I was happy with the transitions I was ready to individually animate some of the elements to have a certain effect that would correctly portray the movement of a certain item. I then recorded a voiceover and put it together in iMovie. Overall it was a long process but I was happy with the result.
The curricular competency “Communicating” was present throughout this milestone. The way I incorporated this competency into my learning was by formulating theoretical models to demonstrate a scientific topic. I did this by writing and expressing a voiceover, which helped me identify different processes of the electron arrangement through atoms. I could have improved on this by talking with a clear voice to portray my thoughts. Overall I complete this competency with places to grow.
To conclude this project I learnt a lot about ionic and covalent bonds. I feel I also demonstrated a sufficient understanding of the curricular competencies for this project. This then lead me to answer the driving question, “How do the electron arrangements of atoms determine the chemical and physical properties of elements and compounds?”. The arrangements of electrons determine the chemical an physical properties of elements and compounds because they change an element into an ion. When an element of a compound becomes an ion it can have reaction with other positive and negative ions causing a physical or chemical reaction to occur. In addition each atom strives to have a full valence shell, causing it to want to exchange electrons, forcing it to create this bond. That is how the electron arrangement works in the creation of chemical and physical change.
What’s your answer to this project’s driving question? It would be great to know, thanks for reading this blog post!
Have a good day/evening and stay safe,
Alicia 😷