Mole Day and Flame Tests

This week in chemistry we celebrated Mole Day. Mole day is when we celebrate the number that is important to chemists all over the world. That number is 6.022 x 10 to the 23rd. Mole Day is October 23rd (hopefully you can make the connection). Mole Day activities include reading Mole poetry, writing Mole Haiku's, writing "mole-isms" (an example of this years is "shopping Mole - a place where moles go to buy all their things" and finally there is the Mole song. This year we happened to get a free cake and we certainly didn't complain about adding that to our celebrations. :) The key is that Mole Day is fun and memorable. :) It's probably the only thing some kids will remember from chemistry.

The other fun thing in Chemistry this week is the flame test lab. This is one of my favorite labs. We burn different chemicals and they produce different colors when they are burned. I'll spare you the detailed description but you could ask my students and they should be able to tell you why. :) The flames are anything from bright red and orange to green and purple. Here are two examples for you.