Tuesday 8.31.10

Today in class we started off by getting a diagram of the classroom. On it we had to label all of the safety features in our class. This included the exits, fire extinguisher, fire blanket, eye wash station, gas shut off, shower, and fume hood. We then went back to our seats and quickly identified lab equipment. These were things like, beakers, test tubes, graduated cylinders, Bunsen burners, funnels, thermometers, ring stands, and Erlenmeyer flasks (beakers that taper to a smaller opening). We then were introduced to measuring. We learned that you are only aloud to guess one number. This means you guess on what ever comes after the last known increment. For example: Lets say you have a pencil that is about 42 centimeters, and a ruler that goes up by tens. You would only know the first number which is 4 for 40, but because the ruler goes up by tens you would guess the second number, which would most likely be around 2. You could then say that you measured the pencil to be 42 centimeters after you put your two numbers together.We then did a lab which practiced measuring using different lab instruments. We had to figure out the smallest reading on the instruments, and then do exact measurements using them. We then measured volumes in graduated cylinders and beakers. After that we measured things like paper clips and humans with rulers and meter sticks.