Academy chemistry news – Chemical analysis elective
In September a new elective was introduced. Its primary goal was to introduce students to qualitative and quantitative analysis, which entails doing a lot of experiments. After a very enthusiastic start we were forced to leave the laboratory due to Covid pandemic and remained confined to online learning which prevented the students from hands-on experiences. Nevertheless, the students succeeded in going through a couple of practicals in qualitative analysis – which is facilitated by sensory perception (seeing and smelling in our case)
After that we adopted an alternative programme in which the students endeavoured to seize more intensively the theoretical background underlying the visible phase of chemical reactions.
We have probed into the types of reactions occuring in inorganic chemistry and identified the changes happening at the atomic and subatomic levels. We have developed most abundantly the concepts of oxidation and reduction, exemplified their agents and done a lot of exercises to identify the changes in redox reactions.
Students have also learnt to identify oxidation states of atoms within chemical compounds based on the fact that any compound is neutral on the whole. Prior to this we had covered the trends in across the periodic table.
This elective is also offered during the second term and the priority will be given to experiments. Should the situation still not be favourable and students will be learning from home, the course will emphasize the foundations that are considered as prerequisits for those who would like to pursue chemistry in DP. The transition from secondary science to DP chemistry is a huge jump and students not having paid much attention to chemistry before might find the stadards of DP chemistry difficult. Therefore, all students, who feel the necessity to catch up with chemistry classes, get the feel of real laboratory experiments or simply boost their knowledge, are welcome.
