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What happened to the year?! It flew by for me! We began the year looking at what makes up an atom-neutrons/protons & our favorite: electrons! You all became experts in finding an elements's electrons whether they lurked in the fifth electron orbital or 7th or no matter the shape-s, p, d, or f. You learned how the electron's configuration or address related to it's reactivity and could predict what two elements would combine and in what ratio. We wrapped up the first semester looking at the Periodic Table's trends which allowed you to work with a whole new set of data for an element-it's radius, electronegativity or ion it would form.

Second semester you saw the different properties that ionic and covalent bonds exhibit and used electronegativity to predict the nature of polarity of a bond. You had fun comparing 3 ionic white powders to 3 covalent white powders. We had the pleasure of meeting a new student teacher, Ms. Betsy Seiss. She brought a fresh exuberance to the classroom. We went through balancing equations, stoichiometry and talked about how limiting a reactant of an equation limits the amount of product you can make. We went over the Gas Laws briefly. Hopefully, now you can explain the properties that contribute to the expansion or contraction of a gas using the terms temperature, pressure, volume and number of moles. We spent one day on nuclear reactions and I hope you got a bang out of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. I hope this summer, you can remember stoichiometry making a s'more around a campfire and make your family some brownies to teach them limiting reagents. Your science projects were outstanding! The public library might have additional information on your topic if you are in need of a summer read.

Enjoy your break. I will miss Topeka West as my family relocates to Benton, Arkansas. Take it easy!

Mrs. Susan Allison