This is the outdated version of this page. For an updated version please go to http://james.hanenkamp.com/chem/. I have included it as a comparison from my other page.

Table-o-Contents

About This Site - What this site is and how to get around it
About Me - Learn a little about me
What I Learned - What I have learned so far in chemistry
Chemistry and the Real World - How chemistry is used in real life
Chemistry Advice - Some advice on taking chemistry
Research Feature - Info about using MRI's to find out information of ADD
Help Section - Help on how to do Mass-Mass problems in chemistry
Links - Links to chemistry related sites, Andover's web site, and to the connection page

About This Site

This web site is basic information about several chemistry things. It has information about: how chemistry is used in the real world, advice on chemistry, Information about using MRI's on ADD children, a help section about how to do something in chemistry, and a few sites of interest including a link to my school's web page.

It is simple to get around my site... scroll down looking at the contents. You can clink on the links in my table of contents or in about this site to quickly get down to any areas of interest you find. If you have any comments you can e-mail me it here although I will probably never update this site.

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About Me

My name is James and I am a sophomore at Andover High School. In my free time (I actually have free time now that football is over), I enjoy programming, spending time with my friends, and even playing video games once and a while. I am planning on becoming a computer programmer when I get out of college. I will probably end up going to K-State like my brother even though I lived in Lawrence and grew up as a KU fan. I am currently taking chemistry blocked 2nd and 3rd hour. I currently have a high A because I think chemistry (as well as any other science or math class I have ever taken) is easy.

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What I Learned

During chemistry this year I have learned many things. One thing I learned is all about elements: their location on the periodic table, and their properties, and other element stuff. The location of elements on the periodic table is the way it is for several reasons, you could be surprised all the info the periodic table has. Then I memorized how to name ionic and covalent bonds, the names and oxidation numbers (charges) of common poly atomic ions. Recently I have learned stoichiometry stuff (using chemical equations to find out information like how much of each chemical is needed to get the desired chemical reaction with little waste). For the harder problems, you have to figure out the balanced chemical equation, then take the given information (like how many grams of some compound) and convert it to moles (a mole = 6.02 x 1023, used like a dozen). Then using a ratio from the balanced equation, figure out how many moles of another compound is formed. It is kind of hard and takes a really long time, but it also kind of fun if you like math.

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Chemistry and the Real World

Chemistry is used in many places and these are just a few uses of its uses. People collect samples of water, soil, etc. to study and find if a certain area is polluted and what needs to be done about it. Another place it is used is in making polymers (a compound that has many different elements chained together to form 1 large object). Many chemicals are mixed together in different proportions to get the "ideal" polymer. Two examples of polymers are rubber and plastic. Chemistry is even used to solve crimes. The take the evidence and try to find out everything they can about it using chemistry. Farmers even need to use chemistry. When they use chemicals like pesticides and herbicides, they need to know how strong a certain chemical is or how strong a mixture of chemicals is so he does not kill off his whole crop by using something too powerful. Even fireworks take chemistry to make. The people who make the various fireworks need to mix different elements to get the desired color, look, sound, etc.

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Chemistry Advice

If you are going to take chemistry or planning on taking chemistry here are some things to keep in mind. Chemistry isn't a very hard class if you stay with the class and don't think you can just skip something. Most of what you learn in chemistry builds upon its self and if you don't know how to do the previous steps you'll be lost throughout the whole problem. Here are some do's and don'ts:

Do's

Do you homework

Ask questions when your confused

Use pencils (so you can erase your mistakes)

Have fun in chemistry

Don'ts

Cram for the tests

Not pay attention to your experiment during labs

Let other people do your work (you will not be ready for the test)

Mix random chemicals and see if you get a cool reaction (I know it's fun but the teachers doesn't seem to like it)

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Research Feature

While looking through The Wichita Eagle I came across an interesting article that tied into chemistry too. The article was about a study using a MRI on children in order to find more about ADD, a brain disorder called attention deficit disorder. During the experiment they discovered that there is less activity in the basal ganglia, a specific part of the brain, then normal children. For the past 30 years, children with this disorder have been treated with Ritalin. In the experiment they tested 10 children with ADD and 6 normal children for the control. In the experiment, they first scanned the children doing mental games without any medicine and then they did another MRI with the mental games after they took Ritalin. The results were surprising, the Ritalin helped all the children in the same amount. While the Ritalin in the ADD children increased brain activity in the basal ganglia, the Ritalin slowed brain activity in the normal children. For years children with ADD have been treated Ritalin to calm then down and at the same time increase their attentiveness. This is important for chemistry as the first evidence that Ritalin works differently on ADD children and explains chemically why it has a calming effect on children.

Bibliography

Maugh II, Thomas H. "MRI could help diagnose attention deficit
disorder." The Wichita Eagle24 Nov. 1998: 1A, 8A

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Help on Mass-Mass problems

If you know how to do Mass-Mass problems but just need help on a specific part click on a link below

Writing the chemical equation
Balancing the equation
Finding the limiting reactant and doing the math

A mass-mass problem is a stoichiometry problem in which you find how many grams some compound will be formed from combining so many grams of one substance with so many grams of another substance. For example, How many grams of Calcium sulfate will be produced when 5.00g of Sodium sulfate if combined with 6.00g of Calcium chloride.

The first step in this problem is to find the chemical equation. Sodium sulfate is Na2SO4 and Calcium chloride is CaCl2. Predicting the product, you take sodium (Na) from the first compound and add the chloride (Cl) from the second compound and get Sodium chloride (NaCl). In the product, you take the Calcium (Ca) from the second compound and add it to the sulfate (SO4) from the first and get Calcium sulfate (CaSO4). putting it all together you have

Na2SO4 + CaCl2-->NaCl + CaSO4

Now you need to balance the formula. An easy way to do this is make a table and the increase both sides until it is balanced.

    2 - Na - 1
    1 - S - 1
    4 - O - 4
    1 - Ca - 1
    2 - Cl - 1

We need more sodium and chloride on the left so add another chloride.

Na2SO4 + CaCl2--> 2NaCl + CaSO4

    2 - Na - 2
    1 - S - 1
    4 - O - 4
    1 - Ca - 1
    2 - Cl - 2

Now the equations are balanced we can start to do the harder part. First, you start with your given information. It starts with 5.00g of Sodium sulfate (Na2SO4) and 6.00g of Calcium chloride (CaCl2). You have to find the mass of Calcium sulfate (CaSO4) that would be produced with the amounts of both the givins so you can find the limiting reactant. Let's start with Sodium sulfate. I write out my information in a table and I multiply across and divide down. That was it is easy to show your work and cancel out your units. For example, if you were converting 5.0 grams of oxygen to moles it would look like this...

5.0g O2 | 1 Mol O2 In Math it would be the same as... 5.0 g x 1 mol
| 16.00g O2 16.00g

What units you have on the top, you put the same units on the bottom of the next one so they cancel out. Getting back to the problem, you have 5.00g Sodium sulfate. There are 3 steps in converting it to grams of Calcium sulfate:

1. Convert grams to moles (use molar mass of compound, found by adding weight of each element from periodic table)

2. Convert to Moles of Calcium sulfate using ratio from balanced equation (use the coefficient or numbers beside the formula, use 1 if no number).

3. Convert to grams of Calcium sulfate (again using molar mass)

Note: always use 1 mol on step 1 and 3

Balanced Equation: Na2SO4 + CaCl2--> 2NaCl + CaSO4

Repeat except using 6.00g Calcium chloride

After making the tables multiply all numbers across the top, then multiply all the numbers across the bottom, then finally divide the top number by the bottom number

Table 1
5.00 x 1 x 1 x 135.15 = 175.75
110.98 x 1 x 1 = 110.98

175.75 ÷ 110.98 = 1.58g

Table 2
6.00 x 1 x 1 x 136.15 = 816.90
110.98 x 1 x 1 = 110.98

816.90 ÷ 110.98 = 7.36g

Now that you figured that all the work is pretty much done. Now you need to take the smaller number of the two answers and use that for your answer. Since 1.58g is smaller then 7.36g the answer is 1.58g of Calcium sulfate will be produced. It may take a lot of work but it is really not all that hard, just easy to make a mistake if your not careful.

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Chemistry Links

http://members.iquest.net/~glassman/chemfunctions.html
Chemistry Functions

This is a cool site to convert things for chemistry. It contains conversions from moles to particles, finds molarity, Finds molar mass, converts certain metric units, converts grams to moles or particles, and finds number of particles to number of grams. It is a really useful site but it very plain and you have to scroll a lot to use the conversions at the bottom.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/~chem/web-elements/nofr-index/
Periodic Table: Webelements

This site has lots of information of different elements and their location on the periodic table. Also you can go to other part of the web site and find other types of chemistry information. I liked this site because it is a well organized and useful site with good information. It has wave files that you can play if you want to know how to pronounce the element. What I didn't like was it was a little slow and that I didn't think it had as much information as it could have on the elements.

http://www.o-chem.com/
OrgoTek 32 Welcome

This web site has info about a useful program, OrgoTek 32. The program has flash cards of organic formulas that you can use to help you learn it. If you think this would be a useful program you can download a shareware version of the program from the site. Then if you like the program you can purchase it and receive many different chemical formulas to use. What I like about it is that it is nice looking web site and it gives you lots of information about its program. The bad part about it is that you have to buy the program in order to get the full use out of it and that the site doesn't have much to it. It would be real useful to a person struggling with organic chemistry.

http://library.advanced.org/3659/
CHEMystery: An Interactive Guide to Chemistry

This web site has TONS of information about several types of chemistry. You can look at the periodic table of elements and get information on a part of the table or a specific element. Also it has information of organic chemistry, electro-chemistry, nuclear chemistry and other stuff. I liked it because it is a well organized site with lots of useful information. The problem with it is it does not work very well with Netscape. It would be excellent for a chemistry student needing some information of various chemistry things.

http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/erd/
Hazardous Chemicals Database

This site is good to use if you need to know information on some hazardous chemical, or if you want to find out if a certain chemical is hazardous or not. It has a good search engine that will find matches closest to what you typed in. I like it because it is easy to get around in. What I don't like about it is it is not all that useful most of the time and it is kind of a bland site. It is useful to a chemistry student wanted to know information about some hazardous chemical.

http://198.110.10.57/Chem/EastSciRes.html
Science Resources

This site contains information on several labs, exams, etc. that you can use to experiment with or test what you know. It contains info on other types of science other then chemistry but mostly on chemistry. I liked that fact that it has well thought out labs that are easy to perform. What I didn't like about it was it was a bland site and that it didn't have much in it other then labs and tests. It would be useful for a chemistry student or teacher who wants to try out some labs or look at various chemistry tests.

Personal Links

http://www.audiofind.com/
Audiofind - Multimedia Search Engine

This is one of my favorite web sites. It is a search engine to find lots of MP3 files while are highly compressed wav files. Basically they are nearly CD quality music that are only a few megs. This site is cool because not only does it contain lots of MP3s but it fixes its links every day to get rid of dead links so you almost never get a dead link. The only bad part of it is it is sometimes hard to find a specific file because there are so many of them.

http://www.winamp.com/
Winamp | home |

This is the home page for Winamp, the best MP3 player there is. It is really cool not only because it plays MP3 files, but you can download different skins (backgrounds) and plugins (audio/visual effects) for it. From this site you can download Winamp and a few good skins and plugins. Also it has links to other sites with lots more skins, pluggins, MP3s, etc.

http://sterling.hanenkamp.com/
Sterling's Home Page

This is my brother's web site. It was a really cool web site with lots of links and other stuff but he removed all of that right now. It still looks cool but there is nothing really inside it except for his bible verse of the day.

Andover High School Links

Go back to the connection page (gone)
http://www.usd385.org/schools/ahs/ahs.html

Go to Andover High School's web page
http://www.usd385.org/schools/ahs/ahs.html

E-mail me

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This page was last edited July 16th, 2004.