Living systems are complicated chemistry

Hello CBGS biology students!  After reading through your essays I must say my hope in the future of science and research has been strengthened.  My major gripes are the quality of the presentation (many un-typed papers....come on folks type them) the references format.

On another note we are moving forward into the Large Biological Molecules (Macromolecules) section of our notes as we have covered enough chemistry to begin to move into the building blocks of living systems.

Since some of you are getting left behind in the material (not understanding the mole, converting grams to moles, calculating molecular mass, etc) I am posting a few links to some online tutorials which can help explain these concepts:

Atoms and Elements
Electrons
Ionic and Covalent Bonding
Molecular Formulas
The Mole

My class is structured in a way that requires you to study at home, read materials before class, and actively search for further knowledge around the present topics. 

And now for some fun chemistry videos:

Na in H2O is exciting!  Yay Exchanging Electrons

Thermite is also cool!  Yay Exchanging Electrons!

New notes will be posted on the blog next week.  For now make sure you check the weather for our amazing mountain field study!

Water, water everywhere and the Back Bone of Life!

Tests have been scored folks and they generally look good with both classes achieving a "B" for the mean score (actually this tells me two things - either the tests were too simple, or you guys are seriously studious [ I like the latter explanation]).

Next week we should be starting Organic Chemistry (or a very simplified version of O-Chem) which will put us on the road for some fun lectures.

I'll post those notes below the ones on water below. 

Also note these cool links:

Moles and Grams and Molecules Tutor!

How do we know the structure of the atom anyway?

And the electrons!

Here are the Notes: