REVIEW OF WATER CONCEPTS:
When exploring carbon, there are many quotes that says it is the element that is the basis for all life. Well, from my own experience in life, I would argue that perhaps water, H2O, is the most important chemical bond that makes up life. This link showed how two elements of hydrogen are stongly linked to an element of oxygen.....forming our famous water molecule. This site says how these molecules move around alot, and find that a nice image when I think of the ocean. It is hard to believe that the ocean, that is alive in its own right, is made up of these small molecules that do their own dance. Perhaps helping to explain the magic of the ocean.
Monday, May 28, 2007
week #3
MOLECULAR STRUCTURES OF CARBON
They say that carbon is the basis of all life on earth. In looking at its elemental makeup, it is clear that carbon has many differnet molecular structures and has a great affinity for bonding. Because it has this potential to form many bonds (mostly stable covalent bonds), it is said that carbons is "known to form nearly ten million different compounds" and seems to be present in most chemical compounds. It makes sense that carbon is so present as it forms the hardest substance in the world, diamonds, and one of the softest substances, graphite. Its own yin/yang perhaps.
I often think of carbon as one of the three elements in making up glucose, which when we ingest it, we convert it to energy. In this process, we form ATP, which Dr. Yeh pleased me to give a western view of what Qi is. He said, ATP = Qi. The basis of life, and finally a way I can explain all this to my family (who are all firm science nerds).
They say that carbon is the basis of all life on earth. In looking at its elemental makeup, it is clear that carbon has many differnet molecular structures and has a great affinity for bonding. Because it has this potential to form many bonds (mostly stable covalent bonds), it is said that carbons is "known to form nearly ten million different compounds" and seems to be present in most chemical compounds. It makes sense that carbon is so present as it forms the hardest substance in the world, diamonds, and one of the softest substances, graphite. Its own yin/yang perhaps.
I often think of carbon as one of the three elements in making up glucose, which when we ingest it, we convert it to energy. In this process, we form ATP, which Dr. Yeh pleased me to give a western view of what Qi is. He said, ATP = Qi. The basis of life, and finally a way I can explain all this to my family (who are all firm science nerds).
Week #3
MY TRANSITIONAL METAL OF THE WEEK: MERCURY
Before I chose my metal of the week, I thought it would be helpful to reasearch what makes an element a transitional metal. This is what I found: (Points taken from wikipedia)
"Transition elements tend to have high tensile strength, density and melting and boiling points. As with many properties of transition metals, this is due to d orbital electrons' ability to delocalise within the metal lattice. In metallic substances, the more electrons shared between nuclei, the stronger the metal."
The characteristics that most transitional elements have in common is that they often form colored compounds, have a variety of different oxidation states, at least one of their compounds has an incomplete d-electron subshell, they are often good catalysts, they are silvery-blue at room temperature (except copper and gold), they are solids at room temperature, they form complex ions, they are often paramagnetic.
When I think about a "metal", I often think about gold, iron or many of the elements that fall into this catagory.....all elements that seem to be very solid at room temperature. Then I looked at the periodic table and saw that Mercury was part of this group. I chose this element because I never think of it as a solid metal, and I also thought this would be a good time to find out what all the fuss is about mercury poisoning amoung eating fish (one of my favorite foods.
Alas, Mercury:
Atomic mass of 201, atomic number of 80, meaning 80 protons and electrons and 121 neutrons. Its symbom is Hg.
I was correct to assume that it seemed strange that mercury is solid at room temperture, as this is the one element in the transitional metal group that is not.
In searching about mercury poisoning in fish, I found that it is not mercury alone as an element that is harmful but it is poisonous in soluble forms such as mercuric chloride or methylmercury, and something to be careful of while eating fish. Most articles say that eating a small amount each week is safe, but like everything.....who is to know? Here is what I found:
"Mercury enters streams, rivers, lakes and oceans primarily through rain and surface water runoff. Bacteria can then convert it to an organic form called methylmercury -- the form that is dangerous to people. Although mercury levels are almost always low in water bodies, methylmercury biomagnifies up the food chain. When small fish with low mercury levels get eaten by bigger fish, the amount of mercury biomagnifies. For this reason, long-lived fish and top-level predators like swordfish and shark often have the highest mercury levels. According to EPA, mercury concentrations in fish can be 1 to 10 million times the mercury concentration in the water."
Before I chose my metal of the week, I thought it would be helpful to reasearch what makes an element a transitional metal. This is what I found: (Points taken from wikipedia)
"Transition elements tend to have high tensile strength, density and melting and boiling points. As with many properties of transition metals, this is due to d orbital electrons' ability to delocalise within the metal lattice. In metallic substances, the more electrons shared between nuclei, the stronger the metal."
The characteristics that most transitional elements have in common is that they often form colored compounds, have a variety of different oxidation states, at least one of their compounds has an incomplete d-electron subshell, they are often good catalysts, they are silvery-blue at room temperature (except copper and gold), they are solids at room temperature, they form complex ions, they are often paramagnetic.
When I think about a "metal", I often think about gold, iron or many of the elements that fall into this catagory.....all elements that seem to be very solid at room temperature. Then I looked at the periodic table and saw that Mercury was part of this group. I chose this element because I never think of it as a solid metal, and I also thought this would be a good time to find out what all the fuss is about mercury poisoning amoung eating fish (one of my favorite foods.
Alas, Mercury:
Atomic mass of 201, atomic number of 80, meaning 80 protons and electrons and 121 neutrons. Its symbom is Hg.
I was correct to assume that it seemed strange that mercury is solid at room temperture, as this is the one element in the transitional metal group that is not.
In searching about mercury poisoning in fish, I found that it is not mercury alone as an element that is harmful but it is poisonous in soluble forms such as mercuric chloride or methylmercury, and something to be careful of while eating fish. Most articles say that eating a small amount each week is safe, but like everything.....who is to know? Here is what I found:
"Mercury enters streams, rivers, lakes and oceans primarily through rain and surface water runoff. Bacteria can then convert it to an organic form called methylmercury -- the form that is dangerous to people. Although mercury levels are almost always low in water bodies, methylmercury biomagnifies up the food chain. When small fish with low mercury levels get eaten by bigger fish, the amount of mercury biomagnifies. For this reason, long-lived fish and top-level predators like swordfish and shark often have the highest mercury levels. According to EPA, mercury concentrations in fish can be 1 to 10 million times the mercury concentration in the water."
Monday, May 21, 2007
Week #2 continued
REVIEW OF THE LINKS:
Of course I chose the third link, "Elemenets, Compounds, and Mixtures" because it provided moving pictures of what it was explaining. I tend to absorb information better when there are diagrams to help me visualize the material. This link was defining some basic terms of chemisty. Basically, an element is only one kind of atom. A molecule is two or more of the same element. A compound is two or more of different elements bound together, such as H2O (water). And a mixture is two or more differnet elements and/or compounds physically intermingling.
Of course I chose the third link, "Elemenets, Compounds, and Mixtures" because it provided moving pictures of what it was explaining. I tend to absorb information better when there are diagrams to help me visualize the material. This link was defining some basic terms of chemisty. Basically, an element is only one kind of atom. A molecule is two or more of the same element. A compound is two or more of different elements bound together, such as H2O (water). And a mixture is two or more differnet elements and/or compounds physically intermingling.
Week #2
ELEMENT OF THE WEEK
This week, I am Nitrogen. It was not hard to pick, as over the last 12 years as a farmer, Nitrogen has been a big part of my life. Most vegetables and flowers need a large amount of nitrogen in the soil in order to produce. When I have had beds lacking in nitrogen, I noticed that the "grow" stage of the plant is dwarfed and the plant never fully matures. There are other elements that are needed to complete the healthy cycle of a cultivated farm plant, but in my experience, without nitrogen, there is no hope.
The two ways I have worked on getting nitrogen into the soil is by ammending the soil and by crop rotation. Ammending the soil means adding nitrogen rich "products" to the soil and mixing it all together. On the farms I have worked on, we used manure heavy compost as a main ammendment. Cows, horses and chickens produce a very high nitrogen manure, which in time breaks down to usable compost. I have also used bat guano (a chinese herb, no less), as they can harvest it and seperate out the nitrogen part of the manure from the other elements. Bloodmeal is another ammendment rich in nitrogen.
Crop rotation is very common in organic farming, and also practiced on large scale corn and soy commercial farms. Legumes, which are plants with a pod (such as beans), "fix" nitrogen in the soil. What that means is they are one of the few plants that thrives on carbon, and while they grow, their roots omit nitrogen in the soil. (Thank you legumes). I use them often to fix nitrogen in our soils by planting fava beans, snow peas and vetch. Large scale farms plant soybeans the year after they plant corn, as corn is a "heavy feeder" or nitrogen and omits carbon in the soil. So the next season, soybens are planted, which thrive on the carbon and feed the soil with nitrogen. It is a nice marriage.
OZONE DISCUSSION
Some of the buzz words that came up when I talked about "the ozone layer" with some friends over dinners were: CFCs, styrofoam, hairspray, refrigerators, air conditioners, sunburns, Antartica, and the 1980s. Most people at dinner thought that the environemtal issue of the ozone layer being distroyed, was a problem solved. One person said, they were not sure if the problem was fixed, but thought that the status was improving. My friend, who studies history, informed us that there was an international agreement in the early 90s, banning things that were hurting the ozone. He thought that this global effort was in fact a success story. All were surprised that the issue is still present. I showed them the articles that we got in class as I was not very clear on how the issue of ozone still is something to work on. I will have to do more research before my next discussions to support my knew knowledge.
This week, I am Nitrogen. It was not hard to pick, as over the last 12 years as a farmer, Nitrogen has been a big part of my life. Most vegetables and flowers need a large amount of nitrogen in the soil in order to produce. When I have had beds lacking in nitrogen, I noticed that the "grow" stage of the plant is dwarfed and the plant never fully matures. There are other elements that are needed to complete the healthy cycle of a cultivated farm plant, but in my experience, without nitrogen, there is no hope.
The two ways I have worked on getting nitrogen into the soil is by ammending the soil and by crop rotation. Ammending the soil means adding nitrogen rich "products" to the soil and mixing it all together. On the farms I have worked on, we used manure heavy compost as a main ammendment. Cows, horses and chickens produce a very high nitrogen manure, which in time breaks down to usable compost. I have also used bat guano (a chinese herb, no less), as they can harvest it and seperate out the nitrogen part of the manure from the other elements. Bloodmeal is another ammendment rich in nitrogen.
Crop rotation is very common in organic farming, and also practiced on large scale corn and soy commercial farms. Legumes, which are plants with a pod (such as beans), "fix" nitrogen in the soil. What that means is they are one of the few plants that thrives on carbon, and while they grow, their roots omit nitrogen in the soil. (Thank you legumes). I use them often to fix nitrogen in our soils by planting fava beans, snow peas and vetch. Large scale farms plant soybeans the year after they plant corn, as corn is a "heavy feeder" or nitrogen and omits carbon in the soil. So the next season, soybens are planted, which thrive on the carbon and feed the soil with nitrogen. It is a nice marriage.
OZONE DISCUSSION
Some of the buzz words that came up when I talked about "the ozone layer" with some friends over dinners were: CFCs, styrofoam, hairspray, refrigerators, air conditioners, sunburns, Antartica, and the 1980s. Most people at dinner thought that the environemtal issue of the ozone layer being distroyed, was a problem solved. One person said, they were not sure if the problem was fixed, but thought that the status was improving. My friend, who studies history, informed us that there was an international agreement in the early 90s, banning things that were hurting the ozone. He thought that this global effort was in fact a success story. All were surprised that the issue is still present. I showed them the articles that we got in class as I was not very clear on how the issue of ozone still is something to work on. I will have to do more research before my next discussions to support my knew knowledge.
Monday, May 14, 2007
extra credit week #1
1.
I took the fun brain game. They gave me the element, and I had to choose the correct symbol. On the medium level, I got an 8 out of 10. I was able to guess well based on others that I knew. If I had to do it in reverse, I would have gotten one right for sure (iron), and maybe three right with guessing the first letter. Yikes.
2.
I took the element table quiz. I am confused a bit and I thought to go by the equation for the atomic mass which is protons plus neutrons. I guess I was wrong, because #3 would have been 14 if that was true. Perhaps I got lucky on the others. Oh, this is so much more fun than memorizing herbs.
1. 6 ... CORRECT
2. 12 ... CORRECT
3. 14 ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is 7
4. 53 ... CORRECT
You got 3 out of 4 correct
I took the fun brain game. They gave me the element, and I had to choose the correct symbol. On the medium level, I got an 8 out of 10. I was able to guess well based on others that I knew. If I had to do it in reverse, I would have gotten one right for sure (iron), and maybe three right with guessing the first letter. Yikes.
2.
I took the element table quiz. I am confused a bit and I thought to go by the equation for the atomic mass which is protons plus neutrons. I guess I was wrong, because #3 would have been 14 if that was true. Perhaps I got lucky on the others. Oh, this is so much more fun than memorizing herbs.
1. 6 ... CORRECT
2. 12 ... CORRECT
3. 14 ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is 7
4. 53 ... CORRECT
You got 3 out of 4 correct
Week #1
BIO
I am an organic veggie farmer turned acupunture studend, and I am in awe. All the things I have done in my wonderful life thus far have all been harder and more amazing then the last. I grew up in New York City and knew from a young age that I wanted something different. I think I have granted that wish as I have been so forturnate to see the world, learn to grow food, dwell in wonderful communities and most of all, continue learning. I feel very lucky to be 31 years old, and be immersed in something that makes my brain think in so many new ways. I also know that this field will provide learning for the rest of my life, so I am at peace. The love of my life is my dog, muna, who turns five on saturday.
THOUGHTS ON LAST WEEKS LECTURE
I am always happy to talk with people about the growing concern for our need to make serious change for the survival of our species. As I said in class, sometimes I feel like I am doing so much as an individual to make concious choices about the environment and it feels like I am not going to make any difference. But I also remember when I got into growing organic food people thought it was just bug filled, dirty food, and now, 12 years later, it is available in most stores and prefered by more people than I ever imagined. I have faith that most people want to do the right thing, only they don't always know the truth of their impact. I continue to hope for more education on what individuals can do to lighten their footprints, as I continue to try to find ways to make mine even lighter. I also have learned that I have to make these changes and do this work without anger, as I don't thing change responds well to that. I anxiously await for a government that steps in and educates us. If things keep going the way they are, unless you know how to make a boat out of dollar bills, money just ain't what it claims to be. ;-)
RESULTS OF QUIZ
1. chemical or physical change:
burning wood-chemical change
crushing rock-physical change
disolving sugar in water-physical change
rusting of iron-chemical change
2.pure substance or mixture:
Sugar in the only pure substance. I got the other three wrong. After milking cows, I am a bit surprised by that one. Perhaps if it was not "table" salt, it would be pure. And steel?,,,,,,,,,glad this is not the final.
3.cup of black coffee.
b. homogenous and impure. I got it right, which was a relief after the last question.
4.The boiling of water:
d. physical....physical. I got it 50% correct. I thought the boiling of water was a chemical change...but I stand corrected.
I am an organic veggie farmer turned acupunture studend, and I am in awe. All the things I have done in my wonderful life thus far have all been harder and more amazing then the last. I grew up in New York City and knew from a young age that I wanted something different. I think I have granted that wish as I have been so forturnate to see the world, learn to grow food, dwell in wonderful communities and most of all, continue learning. I feel very lucky to be 31 years old, and be immersed in something that makes my brain think in so many new ways. I also know that this field will provide learning for the rest of my life, so I am at peace. The love of my life is my dog, muna, who turns five on saturday.
THOUGHTS ON LAST WEEKS LECTURE
I am always happy to talk with people about the growing concern for our need to make serious change for the survival of our species. As I said in class, sometimes I feel like I am doing so much as an individual to make concious choices about the environment and it feels like I am not going to make any difference. But I also remember when I got into growing organic food people thought it was just bug filled, dirty food, and now, 12 years later, it is available in most stores and prefered by more people than I ever imagined. I have faith that most people want to do the right thing, only they don't always know the truth of their impact. I continue to hope for more education on what individuals can do to lighten their footprints, as I continue to try to find ways to make mine even lighter. I also have learned that I have to make these changes and do this work without anger, as I don't thing change responds well to that. I anxiously await for a government that steps in and educates us. If things keep going the way they are, unless you know how to make a boat out of dollar bills, money just ain't what it claims to be. ;-)
RESULTS OF QUIZ
1. chemical or physical change:
burning wood-chemical change
crushing rock-physical change
disolving sugar in water-physical change
rusting of iron-chemical change
2.pure substance or mixture:
Sugar in the only pure substance. I got the other three wrong. After milking cows, I am a bit surprised by that one. Perhaps if it was not "table" salt, it would be pure. And steel?,,,,,,,,,glad this is not the final.
3.cup of black coffee.
b. homogenous and impure. I got it right, which was a relief after the last question.
4.The boiling of water:
d. physical....physical. I got it 50% correct. I thought the boiling of water was a chemical change...but I stand corrected.
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