AKICILJ: state standards

[redbird]

We're back to reading the mind of a committee. In this case, I have a state standard (Tennessee, in case you care) that says students should be able to "Identify the common outcome of all chemical changes."

What does this mean? My best guess is conservation of mass, except that's explicitly listed later on. Maybe that the identity of the substance changes?

Comments

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

There are some very very strange state science standards. Some of them make good sense, and seem to have been crafted by people who understood both science and the teaching thereof. Others ... not so much. I haven't been keeping a list of the odd ones -- I just kind of roll my eyes and e-mail my senior editor with a "Do you think [[bit of content]] meets [[standard]]? I'm not sure!"

Do they perhaps mean the usual indications that a chemical change has taken place (change in state, change in colour, change in temperature, etc?)

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Unlikely - you can get all of those concurrent with simple physical change.

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

Sorry. You're right. My brain is full of hagfish slime today.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Lovely image....

I'm thinking now, though, that the change of colour in melting sulphur may actually involve a chemical change when S₈ rings break up.

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

You know it's going to be a great Monday when the first thing you have to do, on reaching the office, is research hagfish slime.

I'm remembering, very hazily, from first-year chem, a list of things that happened that denoted a chemical, rather than a physical change, but perhaps that list was particular to when two solutions were mixed together: they could change colour, or there could be a precipitate, or they could fizz (either of those last would be state changes, of course), or one might smell something as a gas was produced (another state change). It has been many years, and I was not a very good chemistry student, so I am very likely misremembering.

[redbird]

I think there's a different piece of the standard that talks about signs of chemical change.