Lab 5: Nomenclature Puzzle

Activity Goal
The goal of the activity was to gain a deeper understanding about ionic and covalent compounds by looking at both the elemental formula and the written name of the substance. In order to complete the puzzle, students had to match a chemical formula with the corresponding name that was written on a separate puzzle piece. Students then had to piece all of the parts together in the shape of a square.


Challenge
Our biggest challenge during our activity was twofold. One challenge was that we simply had difficulty matching the formula and the term, especially those that contained polyatomic ions or heavier atoms; to find these we had to refer to the reference booklet many times over, checking and double-checking our translations. Our other difficulty was that towards the end of completing the puzzle we'd realized, horrified, that we had made a mistake somewhere in the process; thus we were forced to take apart the square, checking by groups of four until we had finally over come the error and completed the puzzle. Although the process was disheartening, we continued to persevere and struggle until the puzzle was complete and whole.

Contribution
I believe that my biggest contribution to the group was that I, like the other members of my group, constructed my own squares that were meant to come together with the others' in order to accelerate the completion process. This allowed us to build off of the completed squares using pieces that did not contain any of our assigned elements and therefore made the process easier. In addition I helped look for and provide pieces that were asked for by my group members and I also helped my group in organizing all of our constructed chunks of the puzzle into a whole.