Teacher's Guide to: Balancing chemical equations

[pikatalkstoomuch]

Yeah, still don't get it...

[hp3kanalyst]

@pikatalkstoomuch Sry this didn't help you. Look on balancing equations as more of a math problem than a chemical one. There can be a lot of trial and error to this as well. Suggest you work thru our examples on paper yourself.

[Idiots4lifeN4ever]

This didn't help me at all.... >.>

[hp3kanalyst]

@Idiots4lifeN4ever Sry this didn't help you. Look on balancing equations as more of a math problem than a chemical one. There can be a lot of trial and error to this as well. Suggest you work thru our examples on paper yourself.

[bailyandme]

ok good video but you missed a large poitn of explaining the WHY. you just changed numbers to show us the answer, but we cant replicate unless we know why we are doing it so we also can know WHEN to do it. I do Distance education so I have a government issued curriculum. however I have no teacher to talk to or explain things. makes chemistry tough, the whys and whens are very important when learning :(

[hp3kanalyst]

@bailyandme Thanks for the comment. Beth learned her chemistry via distance ed, and she appreciates your difficulties. We do feel that we do step thru 2 samples adequately. Balancing equations is more of a math problem than anything else. You begin by balancing one chemical, then make subsequent adjustments (if needed) for each of the remaining chemicals. If there is something (else) you learned, that will be of use to other students, pls add it here & we'll consider adding it as a comment.

[NovaWarfare]

the cat is scary :(

[ninjerch]

You know when you said "add 2 in front of the water molecule giving us 2h2o------->h2 + o2", surely that won't work, surely it would then turn the product of the equation to "h4o2"??

[hp3kanalyst]

@ninjerch

No. 2H2O >>> 4H + 2O

[mdma4life]

@hp3kanalyst

I think you mean 2H2O --> 2H2 + O2 ...

But I know what you're trying to say (its just a very poor way for a teacher to explain the answer to his question)

[hp3kanalyst]

Burly: Yes, the cat's eyes move. Don't yours? Hope the clip was of some (other) use to you!

[BurlyPictures]

wtf are the eyes moving?

[LAO90]

that looks cool. makes me wanna pet it. But i cant because it's a curious cat on my screen. What i will do is take notes on my notebook. Tell the cat that i dont want to pet it no more.

[BigidyBooh]

dont understand the 3 bit at 2:41 on the right hand side do you always multiply the numbers or add them

so 3H20  3x2 =6 meaning 6hydrogen atoms or 5 help please thanks

[xpointerx]

Wow very helpful!! Thanks!! I've been really confused in chemistry class but after watching this made it much simpler!!

[hp3kanalyst]

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please note we incorrectly refered to "lot number" when we should have used the correct term, "coefficient". Simply replace "lot number" with "coefficient" in this video when you view it.

[danny00129]

can any 1 pleas explain to me the bit were it says here it gets a bit tricky, since we have an even / odd distribution of oxygen, we must add lot numbers to both sides

[hp3kanalyst]

We in fact have been a bit imprecise here (good 'catch' on your part!). For the equation in question, there are an odd number of atoms on one side and an even number on the other. However, in and of itself, that would not require adding a coefficient to both sides (although in fact, that 'is' what works here). The goal (of course) is to have an equal number of atoms of each element on both sides of the equation.

[luckynumber58]

that was creepy the first time the eyes moved while i was reading...i thought it was my imagination

[hp3kanalyst]

Actually, if I haven't looked at one of my clips in a while, I get the same sort of reaction! PowerPoint's animation features are really nice.

Hope the clip helped you with equation-balancing! I am looking into doing two more clips on this subject, the first on oxidation/reduction (redox), and another on balancing equations based on redox (takes the trial-and-error out of the process).