An explosive experience
January 31, 2019
On level chemistry beginning their new unit of chemical reaction watch Chemistry teacher Mr. McNeal perform a reaction with different substances
Once two substances mix a chemical reaction occurs between the substances. Chemistry teacher at liberty high school teaches his students the basics of chemical reactions with a reaction lab.
A chemical reaction lab called “elephant Toothpaste” shows Mr. McNeal’s on level chemistry class how when substances mix they can cause a chemical reaction.
Chemistry teacher Mr. McNeal performs a chemical reaction lab to introduce his students to the new unit of chemical reactions.
Flames and small explosions usually aren’t something that go over well in a school environment, but on Wednesday and Thursday in Donald McNeal’s chemistry classes, it was all part of a unit on reactions.
“It provides a good visual learning aide,” McNeal said. “It’s also just really fun to see when reactions happen to they can translate what they were doing on paper to actual real life. Now that we are talking about chemical reactions I do a lot of demos with them, students will also be doing labs with them. It’s going to be a lot of hands on with this stuff now because that’s really a good way to learn it and it’s also the fun of chemistry.”
Students such as sophomore Joseph Demers found the demonstrations more effective than a lecture.
“Usually, I’m more hands on so seeing something actually happen is a lot better than just writing down what happened,” Demers said. “It’s also just really cool.”
The experiments allowed students to bring chemistry equations to life.
“I think it helps a lot of visual learners to see what’s really going on instead of just reading about it,” sophomore Karina Otrhalek said. “I’ve done like dissections and things with hot plates before but nothing too extreme.”
