🌲How Can The Behaviour Of Matter Be Explained By The Kinetic Molecular Theory And The Atomic Theory?🌲

🌲Hello and welcome back to the forest of learning! In this post I will walk you through the process of this project “chemistry coding” in which we will be creating a simulation/game about the behaviour of matter, as well as demonstrating the kinetic molecular theory and atomic theory. To create our simulation/game we will be using the coding website; scratch! I personally created a simulation demonstrating salt water at a molecular level. This project was really interesting and I hope you enjoy reading about it!🌲

As always, we followed the project path throughout the course of the project:

When we started this project off, on the first day we jumped right into some thinking! In milestone 1 we created a mind map using mind node which consisted of previous knowledge we had about matter and it’s behaviour. We also added to our previous knowledge through reading some textbook pages which helped us learn more about the behaviour of matter. In this milestone I believe I did a great job at the questioning and predicting competency; while creating my mind map I asked many questions about this topic and added a lot of detail, this demonstrates a curiosity about this scientific concept!

⬇️Here is my mind map⬇️

Throughout the entire project, we added to our understanding of the concepts we were learning about. We would do this  through reading textbooks which contributed to our learning as well as filling out workbook pages which helped us solidify our knowledge. Here were some topics we covered; kinetic molecular theory, atomic theory, behaviour of matter, density, states of matter, elements, atoms, molecules, atomic models and more! Learning about these topics through reading textbooks and completing workbooks would give us the tool box of knowledge we need to create our simulation. 

After building some knowledge we participated in something called the “Gemstone Identification Challenge”. In this challenge we partnered up with our desk mates (my desk mate was Julian, go check out his blog!) and tried to identify an unknown gemstone. Our teacher, Mr. Gross, gave us 3 gemstones with an unknown identity and our job was to figure out which gem it is. We found their identity through calculating the densities of the gemstones using the formula D= M/V.

⬇️Here is my Gemstone Identification Challenge spreadsheet⬇️

After solidifying our knowledge, we finally began coding! We used Scratch to code every aspect of our simulation. I will be completely honest here; I came into coding with a fairly fixed mindset. Scratch, although fairly easy compared to other coding platforms, was difficult for me. I didn’t really understand how to use it, and it was challenging, but I slowly improved on my “scratch skills”. I am very lucky that I had some cool humans around me to help- special thanks to my awesome friend Nolan for helping me throughout my coding journey! 

My original plan for the simulation was fairly simple: I wanted to create a simulation in which you could control particles by a “heat” and “cool” button. The particles would react differently at certain temperatures, and would interact with each other to demonstrate the different states of matter. 

⬇️Here was my first official draft⬇️

(When I created this I had already had some practice)

There were many challenges throughout, at one point I had worked very hard on my code to the point that there was actually too much code for it to save, I went to school and found my entire project had deleted. Needless to say I was fairly frustrated. But it was alright, the second time doing things is always simpler than the first! I worked hard to regain my project to how it was before, it wasn’t the exact same, but it functioned similarly, and that’s better than nothing. 

⬇️Here is how my code looked like after rebuilding my previous code⬇️

Once we had played a little bit around with scratch, it was time to make a plan! For milestone 4 we created a pages document where we presented our ideas and plans for our simulation/game.

⬇️Here is how my plan looked like⬇️

After a lot of trial and error, and going through a lot of drafts, I finally got to my finished simulation. Throughout creating my many simulations I exercised my reasoning and analyzing skills through using logic and patterns to create each one of my drafts.

⬇️Here are my drafts⬇️

My simulation went through many changes, but, I finally finished my simulation! My simulation demonstrates the kinetic molecular theory by changing the states of matter and demonstrating the movement of the particles as kinetic energy decreases or increases. My simulation also represents the atomic theory through showing different particles (molecules and atoms) behaving at a molecular level. The particles constantly have movement through all states of matter. The user will press the “cool” or “heat” button to see how the molecules will react and change into the appropriate state of matter. Heat being added or taken away will effect the kinetic energy amongst the particles.

I finally finished!

Drumroll please…….

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You can also check it out here on scratch!

At the end of our project we also added to our mind map, and answered some of the questions on it.

⬇️Here is my completed mind map⬇️

🌲In reflection, I learned a lot in this project. It was fun to see how much my coding skills have grown from the beginning until now. I am far from a “great coder” but I still improved a lot and am proud of myself nonetheless. Although my simulation isn’t perfect, I am really satisfied with my finished result! I learned how to code on scratch which was a great learning experience, and I can now sit back with some popcorn (but not actual popcorn because my orthodontist would kill me) and see my wonderful creation. So, how can the behaviour of matter be explained by the kinetic molecular theory and the atomic theory? Well, you can create a simulation which will demonstrate both theories and explain the behaviour of matter! Overall this was a great way to learn about important topics all while having fun!🌲

As always, thank you for watching me grow in the forest of 

🌲learning🌲