A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket begins its flight PD
Photo by NASA/Kim Shiflett
Welcome to Honors Chemistry 1360 with Professor Young
Chemistry is fun, fascinating, and very useful. Applications include:
❖ determining what ancient people ate
❖ how materials were manufactured
❖ whether water is potable
❖ if there was life on Mars
❖ if geological materials were moved far from their origins
❖ whether drugs from a dealer are from a known source
❖ if Napoleon was poisoned
❖ if a painting is authentic
❖ super strong polymers
❖ when were ice ages
❖ how the dinosaurs died
❖ whether we caused the ozone hole
❖ are polymers safe to contain food
❖ what’s the cleanest fuel
❖ how to make synthetic banana flavor
❖ how to make perfumes, and so very much more!
Each student will find one application of any kind of chemistry – something that really floats your boat! A concise (10- 15 pages) write-up is due the last week of semester. The write up should follow the form of the scientific method – Introduce the topic and hypothesis, what needs to be measured (and how – describe the method) and what the outcomes might mean, then state what the data was and what those findings mean in the context of the topic.
