Chemistry
121IN: Chemistry and Society
These files are
provided for students in Chemistry 121IN, an integrated lecture and laboratory course at Pima
Community College for the 2008-2009 academic year.
Lecture and Class
Information:
CHM
121IN Syllabus for Fall 2008
Short report information
Notes on metric system, chemical symbols, formulas, nomenclature, chemical equations, and more will be found in the General Chem Survival Manual section.
Course Notes:
Nuclear Radiation
The following are links to web sites for natural radiation decay series.
Some Radioactive Decay Series showing half-lives. From the Uranium Information Center in Australia. Note: This is a pdf file and requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Natural Decay Series: Uranium, Radium and Thorium. From the Argonne National Laboratory Environmental Science Division.
Natural Radioactive Series by Yevgeniy Miretskiy. Select the decay series and the time step, then animate. This uses a bar graph to show the concentrations of the major isotopes formed in the decay series change over time. Additional data on half-lives and numbers of atoms are given on the right of the graph. Note: For long half-lives, select a longer time step.
The following are links to information on the Biological Effects of Radiation
Nuclear Radiation and Its Biological Effects. This is a link to an excerpt from the book No Immediate Danger, Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth, by Dr Rosalie Bertell
Biological Effects of Exposure to a Single Dose of Ionizing Radiation. A table summarizing the effects.
Radiation we are exposed to every day
The following are articles from The American Heritage Magazine of Invention and Technology
Inside the Atomic Kitchen: Irradiated food
The Atomic Cannon: The largest and heaviest artillery piece ever ordered by the Army helped to end a war.
The Beauty of the Bomb: An essay examining one person’s fascination with the bomb.
The Plan to Nuke Panama: The plan to construct a new Panama canal
We Knew That if we Succeeded: An interview with Edward Teller.
Albert Einstein's Letters to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Leo Szilard, a Hungarian physicist who left Germany after Hitler's rise to Power, feared that Germany's nuclear scientist might be able to make a "nuclear Bomb". He had Albert Einstein sign a letter to President Roosevelt which explained the possibility of a nuclear bomb and urged that the United States not allow a potential enemy to develop it first.
How Nuclear Bombs Work. This is a link to the howstuffworks web site.
The Story of the Atomic Bomb, 1934-1945, by James Richard Fromm. This is a link to the web site. This article is well illustrated with photos of most of the people involved.
US Nuclear Tests: Nuclear tests from July 1945 to September 1992 – with web links.
Let's Make a Thermonuclear Device. In November 2001, British reporters searching through an abandoned "al-Qaida safe house" in Kabul, Afghanistan, found this document, and reported that they'd stumbled upon the terrorists' nuclear intentions. This information was published in a Nov. 15 article in the Times of London. In the article, journalist Anthony Loyd wrote that next to "physics and chemistry manuals devoted to molecular matter," he discovered this document on how to make a thermonuclear device. Marc Abrahams, a former editor of the Journal of Irreproducible Results, where the article originally appeared, said "Either there's one guy in the Taliban who had a sense of humor, or everyone was downloading everything on the Net that had the word 'thermonuclear' in it."
The Atmosphere and Weather
Our Atmosphere Notes on the atmosphere
El Nino and Climate Prediction: What is El Niño and how does it affect our weather?
Our Changing Climate: The Earth’s Climate, what causes changes and where do we go from here?
Our Ozone Shield: What is the ozone layer and what factors affect it?
Weather on Demand : Can cloud-seeding really control the weather?
Warmer Oceans, Stronger Hurricanes. An article by Kevin E. Trenberth about how global warming affects hurricanes. From Scientific American, July 2007.
Laboratory
Experiments and Activities:
The laboratory safety and procedures book, The General Chemistry Laboratory Survival Manual, is available in the college bookstore. The laboratory experiments
are available here for downloading. (These are PDF files and require acrobat reader.)
Safety in the Academic Laboratory
Safety
Test Questions
Build
a Spectroscope
Emission spectra of elements: These are links to web sites for emission spectra of elements. Note: Academic websites may only be available for limited time periods.
A periodic table from University of Oregon. Click on an element to see the spectrum. Choose between absorption and emission spectra.
Quicktime movies from Beloit College. Click on the absorption, emission, or combination spectrum shown to initiate spectra. Move the slide on the bottom of the spectrum to select elements. Note: Apple Quicktime needed (a free download)
Spectroscopy: Element Identification and Emission Spectra. Contains an explanation of spectra with both selected flame spectra and element spectra following the explanation. This material was prepared by Dr. Walt Volland, Bellvue Community College.
Spectra of Gas Discharges by Joachim Koppen, University Strasbourg, France.
Table of Flame Colorant by Element from the Mineralogy Database.
A periodic table from Ivan Noels. Click on an element to see its spectrum.
An
Experiment in Alchemy: Copper to Silver to Gold
Properties of Unknown Substances
Nuclear
Chemistry Experiments
How
do we Affect the Quality of Our Atmosphere
Acids, Bases, and pH Using Red Cabbage Paper
Sunscreens:
Preparation and Evaluation
Testing
the Waters
Earth
Science
Preparation
of Malachite
Extracting
a Metal From Its Ore
Recycling
a Metal into a Chemical Compound: The Preparation of Alum
The Aluminum Beverage Can. An article by William F. Hosford and John L. Duncan, from Scientific American, September 1994, describing the design and manufacture of aluminum beverage cans.
Growing
Alum Crystals
Build
a Wind Turbine This is a link to The Pembina Institute Re-energy.ca
site. Download the Vertical Axis Wind Turbine instructions. There will be some modifications made in class.
Build a Solar Oven This is a link to The Pembina Institute Re-energy.ca site. Download the Building a Solar Oven Cooking With the Sun then click on the Build It link on that page for the construction directions. There will be some modifications made in class.
Batteries
Construction
of a Microscale Fuel Cell
Nanotechnology experiments
are located at the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center
(MRSEC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Click on this link to
go to the entire Video
Lab Manual of experiments for Nanoscale Science and Technology.
The links below will take you directly to the experiments or will open
a modified experiment..
Nanotechnology:
Synthesis of Aqueous Ferrofluid Nanoparticles
Nanotechnology:
Synthesis of Cholesteryl Ester Liquid
Crystals
Nanotechnology:
Preparation
of Surface Conductive Glass
Nanotechnology:
Titanium Dioxide Raspberry
Solar Cell
In addition to the
above experiments, there is a section of Nanoscale
Science and Technology Demonstrations, a series of short movies
that demonstrate aspects of nanotechnology. Click on this link to go
to the movie page. (Requires Quicktime which can be downloaded at no
cost from the link on the movie page.)
Science Fiction materials
will be distributed in class on a CD-ROM. The
CD-ROM contains bibliographies, short stories, and related science articles.
The science fiction bibliographies are on this web site under Science
Fiction
Forensics materials
will be distributed in class on a CD-ROM. Forensics activities
will include identification of a suspect, fingerprinting, ink analysis,
handwriting analysis, fibers and fiber analysis, hair analysis, blood
drop studies, drug testing, DNA isolation, and DNA testing. The forensics experiments are on this web site under Forensics