AP CHEM: Opening message 081308

THE FIRST WEEKS

The first few weeks of AP Chem will hold few surprises for you. We will re-cover the basic chemistry skills you learned in the first trimester of your sophomore chemistry course, albeit at an accelerated rate. The first unit will include basic mathematics, classification of matter, chemical reactions and equation balancing, the mole, nomenclature, and stoichiometry. Advanced reactions (redox, precipitation and complexation) and gases will be covered in the second unit. After that, the REAL fun begins.

We will cover all the necessary material in class. However, we expect that you have retained or will quickly recover the following skills:

--nomenclature, including the Stock system ( Iron(II) vs Iron(III) )
--writing chemical formulas/charge balance for salts
--balancing equations
--molar math/unit conversions
--the metric system
--sig figs

If you find you are having difficulty with these topics when we go over them, make sure you ask questions and come in for extra help. We are not going to spend a week on nomenclature like we did sophomore year - more like a day, maybe a bit more. It should come back to you quickly. Those skills have found a quick footing in students' heads in the past.

GEAR

You will need to buy a comp book for your lab reports as you did in your first-year course. You DO NOT need to buy goggles prior to class starting. The student store is still being set up. We will provide goggles for you if the store doesn't have them available by Day 1. My section has Lab on the first day of class, so I wouldn't expect you to have goggles yet anyway.

You DO need to have some gloves to use in lab. The little bags of gloves for sale in the student store will not be sufficient for your lab work this year; in fact one bag might not last the first month! Bring your gloves to class for the first lab period.

Go buy a box of 100 gloves/50 pair from a CVS or Walgreens pharmacy. There are several types of gloves, but the two you should look at are the regular latex gloves and the nitrile gloves. The latex gloves you used last year tend to be less expensive, but less durable. The nitrile gloves are normally blue; they are more expensive but tend to be more durable physically (less ripping). Some students like the feel of the nitrile gloves better; they feel a little thicker than latex but are less pliant. It's your preference as to which gloves you would like to use - both provide sufficient chemical protection - but anything more expensive than nitrile would be overkill. The gloves should be disposable; don't buy the heavy-duty butadiene gloves and expect them to survive being crumpled up in your drawer.

If you and some of your classmates run out of gloves, you can get a glove pool together and buy common boxes to share. However, you will not be allowed to "borrow" gloves from other students unless we KNOW you're in the pool! You can set this up at the beginning if you wish, but if one of you forgets to buy a new box for the pool, you may find yourselves making up lab after school, when you have your gloves.

Your schedules should be available at the school's website this Friday, August 15, barring any complications. You can discuss among yourselves what you would like to do. My preference is for individual purchase, but we've done the pool before and it's worked fine.

INFORMATION FROM YOU

What I need from each of you, as soon as possible, is your coat size in inches. We will buy each of you a 100% cotton full-length lab coat, which you will prep and tie-dye and wear in lab. If everyone sends me his coat size - I need the numbers, not S/M/L/whatever - early, I can get the coats ordered before school starts. If I have to wait until school starts to get your sizes, then it will be several weeks into the year before we can find a timeslot to tie-dye. I will only order coats once I have everyone's coat size, so get that done. Reply here and I'll keep track.

That's all I have for now. Watch this space for more.

Wacky Wednesday