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of the EAGLEs.
This willEAGLES.
As listed on Mrs. Knowle's chemistry blog, the EAGLES are:
Throughout the school year and Chemistry class, I feel as if I truly got in touch with the basis of the EAGLES.
As listed on Mrs. Knowle's chemistry blog, the EAGLES are:
EMPOWERED to be done within 24 hours.life long learners, risk takers, innovators, leaders through collaboration and teamwork
At the start of last year, I do not think that I was very empowered at all as a risk taker or even leader. However, throughout the year, I have discovered that due to my interactions with various classmates I have gained the confidence to take risks and even lead others to follow my work, the very things I had trouble with before. This change was only through the various assignments in the lab by devising means to complete the lab and instructing and aiding my classmates and partners.
ADAPTABLE, flexible, self motivated learners
Coming into the class, I was fairly confident in my ability to learn and to adapt to pretty much any situation; this mindset did not really change, but I did discover that this class did enhance my ability to be adaptable. The environment of the classroom was very unique in that I had to be very independent and take control of my own learning. Of course, you taught everyday, but generally students had to take a lot of responsibility in their work.
GLOBAL minded citizens who embrace diversity with compassion and empathy
Diversity and empathy. Before the year began I had never talked to a senior, in my life before. I don’t know why, but I always considered them very intimidating in nature. However, since many of my courses were AP, it was very difficult NOT to interact with them. As time progressed, relationships blossomed and I became very familiar and friendly towards many of the people whom I did not believe I would ever communicate with. This is eseentailly what I believe to be an improvement in my embracing kids in diversity in a way different than the hundreds-of-races-holding-hands kind of way most people think of when they hear of the word.
LITERATE individuals who communicate articulately and can analyze information
At the beginning of the year, I found it difficult to gain points for my lab reports- a problem that was very frustrating. Fortunately, by the end of the year, lab reports came more readily to me. This improvement in progress quintessentially sums up why I believe this Chemistry class to be instrumental in going to AP Chemistry. Without an improvement in communication, my chemistry skills next year could have been possibly hindered. Progress speaks for itself.
ETHICAL human beings who demonstrate citizenship, integrity and honesty
I SWEAR I DID NOT CHEAT. Humor aside, being a “good citizen” is something I felt as if I definitely improved on. At the beginning of the year, I was not keen on sharing much with my classmates. For most of my high school life, repeated instructions not to share work had made me slightly paranoid towards helping others cheat, so usually I did not let people even know what I was doing, which caused some inconvenience. However, by the end of the year, I was sharing information without cheating, which helped my classmates without doing work for them
SKILLED inquirers who apply knowledge and strive for excellence
I think that the most important thing that I learned this year is how to apply knowledge to things that I do. Outside knowledge, when properly applied, seems to translate into innate success. Per se, if I had not applied knowledge to many of my labs, they would have not been successful. Altogether, knowledge was the fuel to my relative success in class.
Thank you Mrs. Knowles!

Boop.Throughout the school year and Chemistry class, I feel as if I truly got in touch with the basis of the EAGLEs.
This will be done within 24 hours.

[WORK IN PROGRESS]
General Chemistry - Habits of Mind Portfolio
Dear Guest, Welcome to my Blog! This blog is dedicated towards my performance in General Chemistry 2010-2011, and my respective analysis of how I improved myself, throughout the year.
If you are Mrs. Knowles, please notice the page numbers for all 16 of the Habits of Mind, listed in the sidebar and Table of Contents, below.
Reflection (End of the Year Eagle Reflection)
1. Persisting
Quarter 4

Boop.

While I believe a personal knowledge in a subject is crucial in developing a more sophisticated version of the idea, nothing is more important to me than learning continuously. Knowledge would not be given all at once, it would instead reach an individual through repeated trials, many errors, and countless beneficial surprises. One of these surprises manifested itself in the form of our chemistry lab: when we were to dissolve silver in nitric acid.
What I had believed before, that silver would readily react with concentrations as low as 1 M of nitric acid, at a vigorous level, to produce silver nitrate, was simply wrong. When we actually dropped a bar of silver in this acid, no visible reaction had occured even after 1 minute. Had I closed off all learning after accepting the fact that silver could react at a fast rate, I would not have realized that perhaps silver reacted slower than I had originally thought. Overall, by letting myself learn continuously, I was able to accept certain laboratory conditions that let me move on and be flexible with a scientific lab, instead of denying original facts.
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Nitric Acid does not React with Silver at Room Temperature. Figure 16.
Thus, learning continuously not only was integrated into our chemistry class, it also helped become part of me. I believe I have progressed in this habit of mind, enough to report it as so.

At first, when I looked at the topic of this habit of mind, I thought "Oh how easy, I'll just write about how my friends and I have a good time in Chemistry class". However, a closer look at the rubric reveals that "Finding Humor" does indeed qualify as a habit of mind. The art of finding something funny relieves the burden of guilt, embarrassment, etc. etc. In this quarter, I found an applicable example of exactly how relieving finding humor is, in a relatively tense situation.
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Me and Michael finding humor. Figure 14.
During our makeshift lab, where Michael, Eric and I had to test one of the four ways to increase the speed of a chemical reaction, we found ourselves in a patience-testing predicament. The reaction with the .5M concentration of HCl was taking a long, long time to react. After going for around 20 minutes, our group more or less burst into chuckles. We all knew how ridiculous the situation was, but until this point, had we not found humor about it, it would have been quite difficult to deal with. After we laughed it off, we decided to count the trial, which ended up taking more than 30 minutes. We vehemently decided against a repeated trial, instead opting to change the concentration to 1.5M, which took a significantly less amount of time. Altogether, I believe that through another experiment, I have improved my ability to find humor, and defuse a potentially detrimental situation.

burned magnesium.
Admittently, before this school year I have seen magnesium burn. Once in 7th, once in 8th and twice in 9th grade, have I watched my eyes wince at the uncomfortably bright light that is released upon its combustion. However, this was the first time I had responsibility over burning a designated amount of magnesium myself, so I was a bit 'giddy' with excitement, if you will. Genuinely, the new responsibility and task at hand made the seemingly interesting task, all the more entertainment.
The video is attached in the "Taking Responsible Risks" (Figure 12).
When the magnesium combusted, not only did I smile, I found myself saying "Whoa!", both at the brightness of the underestimated reaction, and at my own interest towards the matter at hand. Altogether, I found this as another example of my growth in Chemistry, towards responding with wonderment and awe.

more efficiency. Again, here is a diagram of our can (Figure 11).
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Figure 11
Although we ran into plenty of problems in innovating and creating, in the end our apparatus remained quite accurate to the answer, in that it was more accurate than if we had used a metal can. This goes to show exactly how being creative and innovative can lead directly to success. Altogether, I believe this habit of mind will be one that I will continue to improve on daily, because of its permeating positive effect on the quality of my work.

one would expect scientists to chemistry lab.
One
One day, I lab room. Its hard to give proof of my smelling a chemical, but here is the formula of Naphthalene instead (figure 10).
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Figure 10