Module 6: Chemical Reactions

Have you ever made chocolate chip cookies? You start out with fairly inedible ingredients like flour, baking soda, raw eggs and sugar. You add a little thermal energy, and you have a very delicious treat. The ingredients, or reactants, have totally different properties than what you end up with, or the product. The process to make cookies is known as a chemical reaction. Your world would be very different if it were not for chemical reactions. Making a meal, eating a meal, building a campfire, driving a car, and just sitting on the couch, all involve different chemical reactions. Chemical reactions are caused by atoms rearranging. In reactants, the bonds, or glue, between atoms must be broken and in products, new bonds are formed. In this module, you will explore all aspects of chemical reactions.

Getting Started

Imagine placing a piece of paper into a jar with a lid. After placing the paper into the jar, the mass of the jar is determined including a match. The mass includes the jar, the lid, the paper, the match, and the air trapped inside of the jar. Once the mass is determined, the match is used to light the paper. As the paper begins to burn, the lid is placed on the jar and all of the smoke is contained within the jar. All of the paper burns. Before you begin this module, take a moment to think about the following questions: If the mass of the jar was determined again, would it change? Would it be less, more, or the same? Where do you think all of the paper went?

 

Key Vocabulary

To view the definitions for these key vocabulary terms, visit the course glossary.

activity series	insoluble	single replacement
combustion	Law of Conservation of Mass	soluble
decomposition	net ionic equation	spectator ion
double replacement	precipitates	synthesis
electrolyte	product	reaction
hydrocarbon	reactant