Chem Blog Week 16/17

When I came back to school the class was talking about mixtures, compounds, and elements, how they were different and how they relate to each other. While I was behind a week I had some understanding of the concepts. When I was sick, I checked up on Google Drive an experiment the rest of the class did last week. It involved having to separate different materials from each other using different tactics of removal. The mixture of these materials is just that a mixture:  a group of matter that is physically combined. While a compound is chemically combined. I also found a worksheet that they did in class. It had particle diagrams that had different looking figures in each box. One showed one element combined to a different element and then another one with a different element but not combined. The top picture showed two elements in a substance not chemically bonded. I found out this is a mixture because the elements have still retained their physical properties, and as a result, they haven't changed. The bottom picture showed two different elements chemically combined together. Therefore, this is a compound because their properties have changed as they have formed a new substance. This week we did another separation but it was the separation of a compound: Pepsi. Mr. Abud told us to break up into teams so we could plan out and find information that would contribute to the process of separation. My table along with another tables did research on the ingredients of Pepsi which include high fructose corn syrup, sugar, dyes, and of course water. When we found out the ingredients the other groups were working on the distillation of the compound. When this was done we were asked to find the volume of the water.  Because we distilled the water all we had to do was measure it.  But I still questioned if we got all of the water because ingredients left still looked watery because I would think that what was left behind would have been a darker and thicker substance. But we ran out of time in class to find out if I was right.   While I was gone a week I was able to catch up with the class pretty quickly. I felt like I was talking and answering questions more than a lot of  the kids in class were.  When I came back I was also able to help my friends on past subjects and then they helped me on what I missed. However , I am still slightly behind on some of the things they studied while I was gone. Hopefully this does effect on how I do on the midterm. But thanks to Google drive I am not too behind.