I do offer opportunities for you get extra credit in this class.  Some occur with assignments or tests, but I also give other chances  which are not part of those.

Each one of the extra credit exercises you complete is worth one point added directly to your final averaged grade for the quarter.  With this extra credit you can get a TOTAL of four (4) extra credit point in any one quarter.

Any review or overview or question response must be submitted by the end of the school day on the last day of the quarter to be considered for that quarter.  It is preferred that you do not wait until the last moment to submit your work.  You may hand the work in or you may email it to me at reports15(at)thinkchemistry(dot)com or reports15(at)thinkchemistry(dot)org at anytime during the quarter.

There are all kinds of opportunities available in the Saint Louis area.

Several ongoing opportunities are listed below:

    * View an OMNIMAX presentation at the St Louis Science Center.  Submit a half-page overview of the scientific principles involved in this presentation.  Staple                    your ticket stub to the top of the page.

    * View a popular movie and submit a one page review detailing at least 5 scientific principles or 3 chemical principles involved in this movie.  Discuss how the director
       used these principles to achieve an effect.

    * Attend a scientific lecture or workshop.  Submit a half-page overview of what you learned. 
       
    * Attend a professional meeting, such as the St Louis Section American Chemical Society or the St Louis Academy of Science.  Submit a half-page overview of the
       topics discussed.

    * Some other specific possible ideas:
        The Art Museum  – talk about paint, medium, perspective, etc. in terms of the science involved
        Research WOMEN scientists and inventors
        Interview a woman in science in St. Louis today

    * Submit an additional Written Report for the quarter.

Feel free, at any time, to come up with your own idea.  Please get approval from me first.

As mentioned elsewhere, I periodically give “extra” extra credit opportunities to you to try.  These are listed below.  Most often I come up with these randomly or because someone asks a question and I suggest that they could research the answer for extra credit. The rules for these things are flexible and up to me.

Here is where I raise some questions beyond the normal things in the classroom, and suggest that you might want to just pursue some topics in more depth than we ever could do in the classroom.  You can get extra credit points by answering some of these questions.   I will be changing the things on this list each quarter as I think of them, so come back often!  Some of these questions/ideas relate to areas that we will get to as the year progresses.  Some of these questions could be used more than once.

If I were teaching an algebra course, for example, someone might want to learn about famouse women mathematicians.  But I am teaching Chemistry so my main interest is related to that although I am interested in topics and things from the other sciences.

These are the first "extra" Extra Credit questions:

• Describe the concept of the mole in Chemistry.
• Who was Ada Lovelace? What is she known for?
• What do you think about United States Patent 6,457,474?
• What one thing do bullet-proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
• What do yogurt, beer, salami, and sauerkraut have in common?
• Pick an element and tell me everything you can about it (but don't just cut and paste from somebody else's work).
• How did William Thomson get to be called "Lord Kelvin?"
•  

When you write up answers to these questions, I want you to show me some thought and some real work.  DO NOT just copy information out of a source and/or off the internet.  Tell me what you think about this.  Prove to me that you deserve the extra credit.  Just copying (or cutting and pasting) a sentence or two from a web site or similar is not enough. 

WHO IS ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE SCIENTISTS?

One of my favorite scientists was Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman (1918-1988) was a Nobel Prize winning physicist.  He was involved in the Manhattan Project during the Second World War.  He also taught for most of his career, and became known to many by his contributions to solving the space shuttle Challenger investigation.  One of the notable things about Prof. Feynman was that he was able to relate Physics (and science in general) to all kinds of people of varying interests and backgrounds.

He was perhaps one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists and thrived on outrageous adventure.  His eyebrow-raising behavior once shocked a Princeton dean's wife to exclaim:  "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!"  (A statement which later became the title to one of his books.)  Feynman was surely the only person in history to solve the mystery of liquid helium, to be commissioned to paint a naked female toreador, and to crack the uncrackable safes guarding the atomic bomb's most critical secrets.  He traded ideas with Einstein and Bohr, discussed gambling odds with Nick the Greek, and accompanied a ballet - on the bongo drums.  His life story is a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, eternal skepticism, and raging chutzpah.



NOTE:  Overall you can get a total of four(4) extra credit points from any options listed on this page in any one quarter.