Day 13
It was raining again in the morning and it continued for the rest of the day. We felt colder than yesterday. The weather here is definitely unpredictable. It could be bright and sunny one day and it could pour heavily another day.
The morning classes saw the first and only lesson on chemistry. We had Robert Clay Rivers and Tom Taverner, both PhD students in Chemistry Department here at Cambridge, teaching us. We discussed chemical bonding, energetic reactions and protein science. Chemistry wasn’t that complex to us then, but, after today’s session, we were truly amazed at the passion that these two teachers had for chemistry. There were more depth in the topics that we study at A-levels and we were exposed to the potential fields for research in chemistry.
Practical sessions were held in Girton during the afternoon. Despite the rain, we enjoyed the session tremendously. First we carried out experiments by burning solids to see that colour of flame that was produced. Solid copper chloride produced blue and green flame. Potassium chloride had purple flame. Strontium produced red flame. We learned that these solids were used in the making of fireworks. We played with the thin hollow glass rods by heating the middle and pulling it apart to make fine glass “needles”. We sort of had a little competition to see who could stretch the longest “needle”.
Second, we experimented with different types of metals to find out how fast reaction occurs. These experiments were dangerous and everyone was standing as far back as possible as the experiments were carried out. We mixed aluminium powder with iron (III) oxide and used a magnesium ribbon to ignite the mixture to produce pure iron. We mixed aluminium powder with copper oxide and used a magnesium ribbon to ignite the mixture to form pure copper. It was fun and an eye opener as we would never be able to see or carry out such explosive reactions in school.
At the end of experiments, we saw Wei Jun chasing the same group of mother duck and her ducklings that we spotted yesterday. He was trying to corner them to film them. It was a hilarious sight; Ms Teo and I were laughing our heads off.
After dinner, we headed back to our rooms to study and complete our homework, except Xiang Loong who had completed 90% of his homework. Argh….. I just realised that everyone, apart from me, needed to listen to music in order to concentrate on their work. They are able to multi-task, I can’t. Oh well, I guess everyone has their own study habits.
Done By: Kah Mun
posted by Haiyaku @ 3:06 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home