Blogpost on Tuesday Night Reading

Reading Concepts for D.5-D.7

By Kelly Moran

In last night's reading, I learned a few new concepts. The law of conservation of matter is based on the notion that atoms are indestructible. The reactants in a chemical equation are on the left side of the chemical equation and are what make up the product of the chemical equation. The right side of the chemical equation is called the product and is what comes out from the reactants being combined. In order to balance out a chemical equation you cannot add a subscript but you can only add coefficients. In starting out with balancing chemical equations it is good to start with making an atom inventory. An atom inventory is when you list how many atoms of each element are in the chemical equation. Once you do an atom inventory you can see how many atoms are on the reactant side and how many atoms are on the product side therefore you can see whether the equation is balanced or not. If the equation is not balanced then you will add coefficients to the elements or compounds to make the equation balanced. Many times if the equation is difficult to balance you will have to keep having to add bigger and bigger coefficients until the equation is balanced. When creating models from chemical equations you are asked to represent elements through circles with different colors and patterns to differentiate them. When making models you must make the models symmetrical. For example, if you are to make a model of H2O, you would put the Hydrogen circles on opposite ends of the oxygen circle and have the oxygen in the middle to make it symmetrical.