Science

Robotics

Year 9 Incursion

On Friday, the Year 9 students had an incursion with Professor Bunsen. This incursion was an introduction to our new, exciting and fascinating topic, Chemistry. Professor Bunsen, as he liked to call himself, is a chemist. Before this incursion, chemistry to me was a fun hands on topic, but to me that was it. Sure I knew, that by respiring, my body was going through a chemical reaction, or that mixing bi-carbonate of soda and vinegar, would create an explosion, but chemistry to me was nothing further than a topic within Science we had to learn at school. Carbon, is something we have all heard about, carbon-dioxide, diamond etc. It was surprising for me to find out that nearly every single thing in this world is made up of carbon. The bread you had for breakfast, the sugar you placed in your coffee, all contains carbon. He showed us many experiments, many of them making a big boom. We talked about balanced equations and why it is important in a chemical reaction. In one of the experiments there was a slight amount of oxygen let into the container, which made a big boom, we thought that adding much more oxygen would allow it to make an even bigger explosion, however our theory was wrong. Not only was there not a big explosion, there was no explosion at all, this showed us the importance of balancing equations. He also touched on the problem of global-warming, how it would become worse in the future, but also about a potential solution to this problem that many scientists know but cannot implement, due to the solution costing more than fossil fuels. It is sad to think that, saving the environment costs us more than wrecking it. Overall, this incursion was very fun and hands on, not only did it teach us more about chemicals, but was an eye-opener on global warming.

I try to tell good chemistry jokes but all the good ones Argon, guess I should Zinc of a new one.