Publication Date
2018
Abstract
Concentration, Amount and Counting by Weighing
UMass Amherst STEM Ed Institute Saturday Workshop 2/3/2018
Julian Tyson, Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry. Tyson@chem.umass.edu
Session 1. Introductions.
Ice-breaker: The elementarity contest.
Setting the scene: “How much arsenic do we eat?” Why do we want to know? The Consumer Reports articles (Nov 2012 and Nov 2014)
Dealing with really big and really small numbers.
Session 2. Amount, concentration
Solids, liquids and gases. The “parts per” concept.
Session 3. Counting by weighing
The count equation. Rice grains (the bottle content problem), atoms and molecules.. Chemical formulas and balanced chemical expressions. The numbers in the periodic table. Applications in chemical analysis
Session 4. Scaffolding students.
More on the arsenic-in-rice story
Wee Mac’s Sandwich Shop and the Wee Mac dozen, bread + cheese + turkey (BCT)
From everyday experiences to parts per billion. Amount vs concentration. Sample problems.
Periodic table.jpg (376 kB)
Problem Sets 1 - 5.docx (222 kB)
Solutions to concentration calculations.docx (115 kB)
Chemical Analysis Problems.docx (79 kB)
Included in
Environmental Chemistry Commons, Science and Mathematics Education Commons, Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons
Comments
Background: Problems that I have encountered in teaching a CHEM 101 course “How much arsenic do we eat?” A gen. ed. for non-science majors. 17 times online and 4 times F2F.