Kyra’s been struggling a bit with chemistry of late, so we sat down this evening to work together on some problems for her upcoming test.
It’s been a long time since I did any serious chemistry, but I remember being quite fond of it. Balancing chemical reactions is very much like algebra, where you solve for unknowns and figure out ratios and so forth. Plus it’s called “stoichiometry” which is an awesome name.
So we looked at a lot of reactions like this:
We talked about molecular weights, limiting and excess reagents, theoretical yields, carbonates and oxides, moles and grams, and on and on. Fun stuff.
She wasn’t nearly as excited about it as me. I think I was just happy that I remembered how to do it. And hopefully I explained it well enough that she’ll ace the test now…