4.+Thinking+Interdependently

THINKING INTERDEPENDENTLY

Sometimes, the best part of Chemistry class is mixing the mysterious chemicals together. Whether we acknowledge it or not, a small part of all of us wants to be the mad scientist that gets to perform the most dangerous tasks. I definitely enjoy lighting the Bunsen Burner or swirling the vial of chemicals. Sometimes when I reaaaaalllyyy want to do a certain task, I'll volunteer myself, but I've also learned to be thoughtful of other people. My group often works out rotations, so we all get a different task, or each of us will get to perform part of a task. In labs with many sub-labs, everyone gets to do something interesting and dangerous, since there are more tasks to go around. However, the most I've learned about group work was when we all had to do something at the same time in order to complete the lab.

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All three of us had a job to do here.

For this lab, we had to simultaneously add chemicals, mix the solution, and hold a glass plate to prevent salt from escaping. We were all excited to partake in the most exciting parts of the experiment, but all three of us actually had to work together in order to successfully create intriguing results and complete the lab.

When it comes to work, I don't like to be told I'm wrong. In math, we all do our work individually, but in chemistry, I've found that I can also do math with a group of people. In our precipitate lab, I tried to do my own work at first. I thought I was doing pretty well, but after 5 equations, had I really not gotten any that formed precipitates? I began to worry, so I looked over at what my group-mates were doing. They had produced precipitates for almost every equation! We compared our equations, and I realized that I had done some of my work wrong. Where I was supposed to get (s) I wrote (aq). The other problem was a chemical that didn't produce the results it should have, but if I hadn't checked my work with someone else, I would have never realized my error.



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