Calorimetry excersises), and an online activity to introduce us to entropy. We came to understand these ideas by practicing multiple problems and going over them together at the front of the class.This past week of chemistry has been quite intense and difficult. Some of the main ideas which we covered where entropy and calculating changes in entropy. We also briefly talked about whether reactions where thermodynamically favored or unflavored using the equation for Gibbs free energy. We learned about how entropy is the ability for molecules to occupy different spaces in different arrangements. Thermodynamics basically defines whether a reaction needs help from it's surroundings in order to occur. These topics are connected because both are used to describe reactions and their characteristics. Entropy will always change when a substance changes states and often a change in state is either thermodynamically favored or unfavored. Some important details about these two topics are that entropy increases as heat is put into a system because the atoms go faster and therefore can form more arrangements. Some important details about thermodynamics are that a reaction is thermodynamically favored when it doesn't require assistance from it's surroundings in order to occur. Also you can determine whether a reaction will be favored or unfavored by using Gibbs free energy. To practice all of these topics, we did multiple lecture quizzes, worksheets (
Some questions I still have are mostly about how to calculate various things. I feel like we've learned about a hundred equations and I really need to practice knowing when to use them. I feel like my participation this week has been decent. I've done all of the the work assigned but I feel like I just haven't quite absorbed the information as well as I could have. I also wanted to get more lecture quizzes done a day early but I just got lazy. I'd rate my understanding of this week's material at about a six. I feel like I have a basic understanding of what's going on but I definitely need more practice and I'm fairly scared for next week's test. I still need to work on calculating enthalpy and entropy in calorimeter situations. Some ideas that have changed for me is that when heat goes into a system, the temperature of the system actually goes down. I'd never actually thought of it like that before this past unit.
