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December 8, 2011

Atoms and their Electrons

Filed under: Chemistry — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — David @ 1:07 pm

This is a pretty good video I found on google video – it contains some good Chemistry atall levels (pre IB, SL and HL) and from a number of topics (eg, periodicity, atomic structure) and even some TOK.

I hope you enjoy it!

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October 20, 2011

HL internal assessment – some thoughts

Filed under: Business & Management — Tags: , — Paul Clark @ 3:53 pm

IB websites may not always be the easiest to navigate, but they are generally comprehensive in coverage even if you have to dig deep to find what you are looking for and then combine available information. I think internal assessment in Business and Management tends to fall into that ‘dig deep and check for additional information’ category.

Let’s examine where we should be looking for supporting material. Naturally we start with the programme guide. There are two essential pieces of reading from the printed guide; pages 48 to 54 on assessment details and 55 to 68 for the assessment criteria. It would be expected that all teachers and students would have a good working knowledge of the relevant HL and SL details from these sections – after all this is the most basic of information. We also have additional and essential information on the OCC that is not in the guide; for example full information on word counts. On that basis, it should be expected that supervisors of the IA access these additional materials and make their students aware of the requirements. The problem is that every session, it is apparent that students appear to unaware of even the guide information, let alone the additional information available on the OCC. Though a minority fall into this category; it is a surprisingly significant minority. Indeed, students from the same centres frequently make similar mistakes session after session, despite the feedback afforded by the moderators, examiner reports and through requesting moderator reports.

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March 31, 2011

Google and Bunsen

Chances are you will have used google today …. and chances are you will have seen the traditional google logo replaced with a bunsen burner, kettle, test tubes and so on.

Somehow (and I am still trying to figure out how to do this!) you can get the ‘google bunsen logo’ to turn into an animation, as the following youtube clip shows.

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March 30, 2011

Molecular pistons and redox

Filed under: Chemistry — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — David @ 9:55 am

A redox reaction has been used to move a molecular piston back and forth. It is hoped that this will allow nanomachines to make use of it.

The piston works with a man made molecule called a rotaxne. The rotaxne is a liner molecule with a napthalene complex at one end and sulfur containing group at the other end. The sliding part of the piston is made of six carbon rings, joined to form a hooped shaped positively charged ion.

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March 29, 2011

Combustion kept simple

When teaching about combustion, we must remember to consider ‘complete’ and ‘incomplete’ combustion.

During complete combustion, the fuel will produce CO2 and H2O.

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March 28, 2011

Mars mix up and data quality

Do you trust the temperature reading on your thermometer? How important is it to us that equipment records the ‘correct data’?

You may remember a few years ago (six and a half) that NASA landed a couple of robots on Mars – Opportunity and Spirit.

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March 25, 2011

Water (5)

Tuesday was World Water Day 2011 and the theme for this year was ‘Water for Cities’. The theme for this weeks blogs posts will therefore be all about water.

So far, we have been focusing on the fact that water has a much higher boiling point than is predicted and that the reason could be pinned down to electronegativity.

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March 24, 2011

Water (4)


Tuesday was World Water Day 2011 and the theme for this year was ‘Water for Cities’. The theme for this weeks blogs posts will therefore be all about water.

So far, we have been focussing on the fact that water has a much higher boiling point than is prediced and that the reason could be pinned down to the hydrogen bond.

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March 23, 2011

Water (3)

Yesterday was World Water Day 2011 and the theme for this year is ‘Water for Cities’. The theme for this weeks blogs posts will therefore be all about water.

You may also remember that yesterday I posted a question asking:

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March 22, 2011

Water (2)

Filed under: Chemistry — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — David @ 12:00 pm

Today is World Water Day 2011 and the theme for this year is ‘Water for Cities’. The theme for this weeks blogs posts will therefore be all about water.

Water, dihydrogen monoxide, oxy-dihydride – what ever you call it, it means the same thing – water (H2O). Water is special to us for all sorts of reasons …

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