Blog Post #5

     This past week has been very busy as we've learned about several new topics. Some of the main ideas we've learned about are the shapes that molecules make and polarity. The shapes made by molecules are dictated by bonded and unpaired electron clouds. This is known as the VSEPR theory. We also learned about how molecules have poles and some, based on their shape, have polarity. These ideas are connected because often polarity is dictated by shape. If a molecule's shape is symmetrical, the individual poles of electrons can cancel out meaning that the molecule as a whole has no polarity. Some important details about the VSEPR theory are that electron domain geometry shapes are often much different than molecular domain geometry shapes. This is because electron domain shapes include unpaired electrons while molecular domains do not. A important detail about polarity is that based on the molecular domain shape, polarity can cancel itself out if they're pulling in opposite directions. We did multiple POGIL's this week regarding  the VSEPR theory. The most interesting was our POGIL were we made electron domain shapes with balloons and molecular domain shapes with gumdrops and toothpicks. We also practice more Lewis structures with POGIL 14 and  POGIL 15. Through these POGIL's we learned about charges and resonance structures. We also learned about polarity through a lecture and a lecture quiz.
     We learned a lot this week and I'm definitely still a little cloudy on some subjects. Most of the questions I have are just some clarification questions regarding polarity and molecular domain shapes. I think my participation was good this week as I did all of the work and pitched in to help my group on the POGIL's. My understanding of this week's material was not as good as I'd like. I will try to fix this by reviewing the lectures again or trying to go after school some more. I still need to work on understanding polarity better and recognizing electron domain shape. Some new things I have to think about are electron clouds. I find it interesting how they can be different sizes and how they all affect each other.