Great talking math with you today. I took the six yards of math goodness so it doesn’t get rained on. If it ends up being useful, I can always leave it for you.

This quick math game will help you treat the multiplication table as personal race. Try to set your personal best time each time you take a crack. You know this stuff well, so jump right to Level 3.

You know a lot about fractions, and you will start to use equivalent fractions to find equal ratios. In some ways the interactive below is for grade 6 or 7, but I think you have such a strong math foundation that it may entertain you. If you want to explore ratios, this Proportion Playground is a fun tool to explore how these numbers create equivalent ratios.

I came face-to-face with those feelings in 2003 when, at the height of my career, I gave a talk about the science behind our knowledge of an oil spill on the Buzzards Bay side of Cape Cod caused by fuel oil from the barge Bouchard 120. I felt good about the information I’d provided to a packed house, until the question and answer session began, and a man asked me a question for which I was utterly unprepared: “When,” he asked, “can I start fishing again to feed my family?”

The MV Wakashio, the Japanese-owned ship from which oil spilled near Mauritius, was carrying about 4,000 metric tons of fuel oil when it struck a coral reef close to the coast on July 25, according to its operator. At first, it would appear as though Mauritius has the deck stacked against it — and it does face some critical challenges. The location of the ship and direction in which the oil is drifting has left little room for winds, waves, and currents to dissipate and dilute the oil or move it away from the coast, and space was tight for responders setting up barriers to protect beaches. The island has limited resources needed to fight the spill, is far from places that can provide supplies, and is relying on international assistance to protect its people and environment.

Mauritius has in its favor the growing international cry for help that is being magnified on social media. The important thing is for people with skills and knowledge to see and hear those cries and to continue to respond in a manner befitting a spill of this magnitude far from the resources that might be available elsewhere.

Efforts already underway appear to be helping. Though the spill began July 25, emergency workers were able to pump almost 3,000 tons of fuel oil out of the ship before it spilled into the ocean, Voice of America reported, citing Mauritius authorities. Curtains of fabric, laid out in the ocean, can help contain the spill. It would appear likely that eventually, recovery workers might use detergents or chemical components to wash oily residues off rocks.

If there is no additional oil left to leak from the vessel, responders will be free to focus on containing what was spilled and removing oiled material, such as beach sands, and washing hard surfaces. At the same time, there is still a pressing need for experienced teams to assess damages and to develop and implement comprehensive, long-term monitoring programs like what we have in the Gulf of Mexico after Deepwater Horizon.

Let’s not give up hope so early and assume Mauritius will be forever transformed into a despoiled wasteland. It is critical that casual observers stay informed about the realities of the situation, rather than abandoning Mauritius’s economy in the faulty assumption that its beaches will be ruined. If those notions become cemented in people’s minds, it will hurt Mauritius’s crucial tourism and fishing industries and could compound the country’s problems by causing longer-lasting economic and psychological harm than the oil spill by itself.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill spread some 160 million gallons of crude oil along more than 1,300 miles of coastline. It killed enormous numbers seabirds, sea turtles, oysters, marine mammals, and fish larvae. If there was anything we learned from that event, it’s that coordinated, broad-based response on sea, land, and from air is critical in the early days of a spill. To a large extent, we were successful in that Deepwater Horizon occurred in the northern Gulf of Mexico, an area with people and resources well-placed to respond to a spill of that magnitude.

Despite our efforts, of course, there are lingering environmental impacts from Deepwater Horizon and many uncertainties about long-term effects. But to a large extent — at great cost and through yeoman efforts by thousands of people — the beaches and waters are largely clean and wildlife has recovered. (A 2016 paper in Marine Pollution Bulletin noted that “worst-case impact scenarios did not materialize” after that spill, and bird populations and marshes proved resilient.) One exception are deep-sea corals, which grow slowly and could not protect themselves by moving. Another exception is people.

In September 2010, I was at the oil spill crisis headquarters for the Deepwater Horizon disaster in New Orleans when the US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg reported the overall safety of eating seafood from the Gulf. A few days later in Alabama, I went to a café whose owner refused to serve Gulf fish. “I’m not giving customers a side of cancer,” he asserted.

Even five years later, some of those doubts about the cleanliness and safety of Gulf seafood lingered. Such stubbornly assured that erroneous beliefs can be more persistent than oil. They added to other stressors on many people in the Gulf whose livelihoods depend on tourism and fishing to recover.

Numerous studies of populations who have suffered oil spills show high incidences of depression, severe mental distress, domestic problems, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Those symptoms are precipitated by the violent disruption in their lives caused by the spill. They linger in areas that are written off with worst-case assumptions, but those impacts don’t result in arresting visuals like a pelican covered in oil.

I am in no way diminishing this terrible event in Mauritius. The nation’s people are in a tough spot, and there is still a lot of work to be done. But prematurely proclaiming an irredeemable catastrophe isn’t helpful, especially at this stage of an unfolding crisis. Nature has shown it can be resilient, but it helps if we don’t let our focus on worst-case scenarios stand in the way of us giving it a hand.

Chemistry

Readings on acids, bases and related concepts

• Acid and Bases
• Oxidation and Redox reaction
• Precipitate Reactions

New readings from college level text (LibreText):

• Precipitate reactions
• Talking about Oxides
• Another Redox Reading

Even newer readings from OpenStax:

• 3D Molecular Shapes

Structure of Matter

Building an atom helps us consider the structure of each atom.

Building a molecule is more lined with your current progress. This helps show how atoms form molecules by sharing electrons.

Click to Run

This will allow us to explore the shapes of molecules and discuss the trends.

This model helps us explore different types of an element’s atom. It focuses on the hydrogen atom.

Click to Run

Problem: For each of the following pairs of ions, write the formula of the compound they will form:

(a) Ca²⁺, S²⁻

(b) NH4+,NH4+, SO42−SO42−

(c) Al³⁺, Br⁻

(d) Na⁺, HPO42−HPO42−

(e) Mg²⁺, PO43−

. 

Balance the following equations:

(a) PCl₅(𝑠)+H2O(𝑙)⟶POCl₃(𝑙)+HCl(𝑎𝑞)PCl₅(s)+H₂O(l)⟶POCl₃(l)+HCl(aq)

(b) Cu(𝑠)+HNO₃(𝑎𝑞)⟶Cu(NO₃)₂(𝑎𝑞)+H₂O(𝑙)+NO(𝑔)Cu(s)+HNO₃(aq)⟶Cu(NO₃)₂(aq)+H₂O(l)+NO(g)

(c) H₂(𝑔)+I₂(𝑠)⟶HI(𝑠)H₂(g)+I₂(s)⟶HI(s)

(d) Fe(𝑠)+O₂(𝑔)⟶Fe₂O₃(𝑠)Fe(s)+O₂(g)⟶Fe₂O₃(s)

(e) Na(𝑠)+H₂O(𝑙)⟶NaOH(𝑎𝑞)+H₂(𝑔)Na(s)+H₂O(l)⟶NaOH(aq)+H₂(g)

(f) (NH₄)₂Cr₂O₇(𝑠)⟶Cr_2O3(𝑠)+N_{2(𝑔)+H2O(𝑔)(NH4)2Cr2O7(s)⟶Cr2O3(s)+N2(g)+H2O(g)}

(g) P₄(𝑠)+Cl₂(𝑔)⟶PCl₃(𝑙)P₄(s)+Cl₂(g)⟶PCl₃(l)

(h) PtCl₄(𝑠)⟶Pt(𝑠)+Cl₂(𝑔)

Goals for May:

• Atomic Structure: experimental evidence of atomic structure, quantum numbers and energy levels (orbitals), electron configurations, periodic trends
• Molecular Structure, including Lewis structures, three-dimensional molecular shapes, polarity
• Bonding: including ionic, covalent, and metallic bonds, relationships of bonding to properties and structures; intermolecular forces such as hydrogen bonding, dipole-dipole forces, dispersion (London) forces

Stochiometry (traditional chemistry)

Goals for May:

• Mole Concept: including molar mass, Avogadro’s number, empirical and molecular formulas
• Chemical Equations; including the balancing of equations, stoichiometric calculations, percent yield, and limiting reactants

Reaction types

Goals for May:

• Acids and Bases: including Brønsted-Lowry theory, strong and weak acids and bases, pH, titrations, indicators
• Oxidation-Reduction: including recognition of oxidation-reduction reactions, combustion, oxidation numbers, use of activity series
• Precipitation: including basic solubility rules

Equilibrium and reaction rates

Click to Run

Goals for May:

• Equilibrium Systems, including factors affecting position of equilibrium (LeChâtelier’s principle) in gaseous and aqueous systems, equilibrium constants, and equilibrium expressions
• Rates of Reactions: including factors affecting reaction rates, potential energy diagrams, activation energies

Thermochemistry

Goals for May:

• Goals for May: Including conservation of energy, calorimetry and specific heats, enthalpy (heat) changes associated with phase changes and chemical reactions, heating and cooling curves, entropy

States of Matter

Goals for May: Gases: including the kinetic molecular theory, gas law relationships, molar volumes, density, and stoichiometry. Liquids and Solids: including intermolecular forces in liquids and solids, types of solids, phase changes, and phase diagrams. Solutions: including molarity and percent by mass concentrations, solution preparation and stoichiometry, factors affecting solubility of solids, liquids, and gases, qualitative aspects of colligative properties

Laboratory Safety & Data

We will focus more on interpreting graphical data, and I will list the boring equipment/measurement/safety questions here at some point.

Goals for May: Including knowledge of laboratory equipment, measurements, procedures, observations, safety, calculations, data analysis, interpretation of graphical data, drawing conclusions from observations and data

These videos provide yet another voice on how to understand exponents, logarithms, and how to solve problems with them.

Welcome to the broadcast

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Here are the details about the broadcast:

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Homework:

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Sub-text: Let’s keep this learning going!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

We are going to use these three packages to explore coding.

• Artificial Intelligence: Use AI For Oceans to see how people use artificial intelligence!
• (Dance Party is here)
• Scratch: We will use this program to drag computer code into place so the cat does exactly what we want.