Potions

Q: Will the students have access to a digital balance during the event? If so, will it be at their station or will there be a shared one in the room?

A: If students need a balance to answer a question, it will be a digital balance and likely shared.

Q: Under basic chemistry skills: “Separation of mixtures and solutions based on physical properties. (For example: how would you separate sand, salt and water from a bucket of sea water).” I wanted to clarify whether the kids need to be able to tell you how to do this, or if they actually need to perform this activity. (I thought they won’t have access to a heat source.) Thanks!

A: The students need to understand how to separate mixtures/solutions based on physical properties as a concept. They will not be performing this experiment as stated. It is just an example to get you thinking about how you might do a separation like this… How might they use physical properties such as size, shape, color, density, magnetism or the ability to sink or float to separate the substances in a mixture?

Q: Will the kids need to know anything beyond basic orbitals for the Bohr Model (i.e. will they need to know about s, p shells, etc), or just the number of electrons in an orbital for the period 1-3 elements?

A: The students will need to be able to “Draw Basic Bohr Model elements when atomic number and atomic mass/weight is given. Nothing beyond the third period will be asked.”

Potions

Q: During the Potions event, will the students need to identify the components of a mixture of two or more powders, or will they only need to identify individual powders?

A: Students will only need to identify one powder at a time.

Sharing a Coach Between Schools

Question:

I have an interesting question – we have a volunteer UM undergraduate student who volunteered herself to coach for two schools (not understanding that there were two different school groups that had contacted her fraternity). Both schools now have her committed to coaching Potions 4th & 5th grades, at the same time. She doesn’t want to let either down and suggested that she coach all the students together. Assuming both head coaches were in agreement, would there be anything wrong with that?

Answer:

There would be nothing wrong with them learning and practicing together.

Potions

Q: I’d signed up for the potions coach position. I wasnt able to make the meeting on Thursday as I was traveling for work (my wife did and did her best to fill me in). I’ve read the ppt and the event description, which all seem clear; however I was wondering if there was any sort of coaching guide/schedule as to how to prepare the kids – It’s been a long time since I did chemistry and a basic schedule or guides would go a long way towards helping me prepare the children.

A: Thank you so much for coaching! There is not currently a coaching guide or schedule for Potions but I would recommend that you use the PPT slides and the Concept Covered listed in the detailed event description as a good place to get started. You may also want to contact your school’s head coach who could put you in contact with last year’s Potions coach for good suggestions of outlines.