Chem 31A 2017, Section 1 1

Section 1: Safety, Study Skills, and Basic Topics

Goal: During this section, you will discuss laboratory safety, useful study skills for this course,
as well as review significant figures, scientific notation, and dimensional analysis.

Lab Safety: In a small group, answer the following questions.

Look around your lab room. Identify where the following pieces of equipment are, how to use
them, and why they are important in a lab. You will find extra clues at the equipment locations.

1. Fire Extinguisher
a. What fires could you put out with the extinguisher in the lab?

b. What fires should you NOT use this extinguisher on?

2. Emergency Shower & Eye Wash

a. How long should you stand under the shower in the event of a chemical spill?

b. If your lab partner has just spilled chemicals on themselves, what should you do?

c. Find the eye-wash station and make sure the hose and bucket are set up below the
drain pipe. Fully pull down the eye-wash station until the water turns on. Push it
back up into the wall to turn it off.

3. Lab Hoods - How low should the hood sash be during an experiment?

4. Spill Kit - When would you use the spill kit?

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5. Broken Glass Container - You just realized that you dropped your sample container into
the broken glass bin what should you do?

6. Sinks - What items can go down the sink?

7. Glove Station - Where do we put used gloves?

8. Find the Red phone do NOT pick this up! What number does this dial when should
you use it?

9. Waste
a. Find where you will put any solid waste (i.e. gloves, paper towls, weigh boats
with chemicals on them).

b. Where do you put any liquid waste?

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Study Skills/Personal Goals

Learning and studying in college is different from learning and studying in high school. Reflect
on your own study habits: what has worked in the past? What has not worked?

What do you think you will need to adjust in order to succeed in Chem 31A?

With your group mates, brainstorm ways to best prepare and study for this course Consider:
What resources are available to you?
How can you best utilize the resources you have?
How will you manage your time between multiple courses to ensure you are able to
complete problem sets, papers, assignments, etc in time and STIILL SLEEP!?
What are your personal study goals?
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Basic Topics:
I. Significant Figures - Measurements
Significant figures is a way to determine the certainty of an answer. For example, when
measuring something in a graduated cylinder that has markings every 10 mL, the certainty in that
value is to the ones place, so any measurement would be recorded to the ones place. Liquids are
measured to the bottom of the meniscus (the bottom of the liquid curve).

Example: How many milliliters are in this graduated

cylinder?

Answer: There are markings for every one milliliter, so the

answer is listed to the next place, the tenths place. Thus the
answer is 36.6 mL (36.5 or 36.7 would also be reasonable).

Practice Problems Answer the following questions using the tools at your disposal

1. How many centimeters long is your pencil? To which place do you write the answer?
Why?

2. How many centimeters is your ID? To which decimal place do you write the answer?
Why?

For this part of the lab, put on a pair of gloves. Leave your gloves on until you get to Part II

3. Place a 10. mL graduated cylinder on a balance. Push the tare button (labeled 0/T) on
the scale so that the mass reads 0.000g. Slowly add water to the graduated cylinder to
weight out 2.5g of water. Record the mass below.

Mass of Water: ____________________

4. Calculate the volume that this amount of water should take.

Calculated Volume:___________________
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5. Now measure the volume according to the graduated cylinder. Dont forget to keep track
of your significant figures!

Actual Volume:____________________

6. Which answer is more accurate? Explain.

7. Remove the graduated cylinder from the balance, and tare the scale (so that it reads
0.000g with nothing on it). Weigh the empty graduated cylinder and record the weight.

Mass of Grad. Cylinder: ________________

8. Then, fill the graduated cylinder with 8 mL of water. Measure the volume of water you
actually added (since you probably did not add exactly 8.00 mL).

Volume Measured: ____________________

9. Calculate how much that water should weigh. Then measure the mass on a scale.

Calculated Mass: _______________ Actual Mass: ______________________

10. Which is more accurate? Dont forget to keep track of your significant figures!

11. Thinking about the two experiments you just completed, why are significant figures
important?

Leave your gloves on! Talk to your TA before you take your gloves off.
Chem 31A 2017, Section 1 6

II. Significant Figures - Calculations

In the same way that certainty applies to measurements, it applies to calculations. When we do
calculations, we need to combine our data in a way that preserves the same meaning. There are a
series of rules to follow in order to determine the number of significant figures at the end of your
calculations:

1. Nonzero digitis are always significant.

Example: 2593 cm has 4 significant figures

2. Zeros between nonzero digits are always significant.

Example: 3902 ft has 4 significant figures

3. Zeros at the beginning of a number are never significant.

Example: 0.00532 L has 3 significant figures

4. Zeros at the end of a number are significant if a decimal point is PRESENT.

Example: 53.0 in has 3 significant figures

5. Zeros at the end of a number are AMBIGUOUS if a decimal point is ABSENT.

Example: 400 tsp has an ambiguous number of significant figures it could be 1 s.f. or 3
s.f. Since the number of sigfigs is ambiguous, people often assume the trailing zeros are
not significant, and as such 400 tsp could be written as 4 x 102 tsp

6. Exact quantities and counted numbers are not measured and have an unlimited number of
significant figures. Alternatively, you could say the concept of sigfigs does not apply.
Example: Counted Number: Number of Sig Figs
5 cupcakes Unlimited or N/A

Exact definition of units: Number of Sig Figs

100 cm = 1 m Unlimited or N/A

7. We sometimes use box or line notation as a visual reminder of the number of significant
figures present.
Example: 5.26|93 cm indicates 3 significant figures present meaning 5.27 cm

Practice Problems:
1. How many figures are in the following values:

a. 5.30 Mg

b. 206 m

c. 2600 s
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III. Significant Figures Calculations Cont.

There are also rules regarding calculations:
Multiplication and Division: Round your answer such that it has the same number of significant
figures as the measured quantity with the smallest number of significant figures.
Example: 1.56 x 2.500 = 3.900 = 3.90
3 s.f.s 4 s.f.s 3 s.f.s

Addition and Subtraction: Round your final answer to have the same number of decimal places
as the number with the smallest number of decimal places.
Example: 5.25
12.6
+201
218.85 = 219 (The smallest number of decimals is in the ones place, so my
answer must be rounded to the ones place.

Practice Problems:

Complete the following calculations with the correct number of significant figures.

1. 25.62 x 3.56321 =

2. 2.5039 0.509 =

3. Adam is biking three times faster than Analyssa is running. If Analyssa is running
5.00mi/hr, how fast is Adam biking?

I. Dimensional Analysis
Dimensional Analysis is an important tool used to convert various units into other units by using
conversion factors. When doing dimensional analysis, it is important to keep track of the units
you start with, and the units with which you want to end. The best way to do this is to write your
conversion factors as fractions in a line in order to keep track of and cancel units.
Example: How many inches are in 3.00 meters? (1in=2.54cm)

100 cm 1 in
3.00 m = 118 in
1 m 2.54 cm
As seen above, the meters cancel on top and bottom of the fraction, as to centimeters, leaving the
answer in inches, which is the desired unit.
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Practice Problems:

1. 4 ft = _______km

2. Lucie is driving a car at 65mi/hr, how fast is she driving in km/hr? In mi/sec? In
km/sec? If a photon travels at 3.00x108m/s, how many times faster does the photon move
than Lucie?

3. How many teaspoons are in 3.00cups of chocolate milk? How many milliliters?

4. How many cm3 are in 10.0 dm3?

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5. I have 1 L of water in my water bottle, how many grams of water is that?

Problem Solving Challenge Problems

Using equations to solve problems can often be a bit daunting, but with a systematic approach
and practice, you will find them to be more approachable! Lets try an example:

1) A fruit grower is using two types of fertilizer in an orange grove, brand A and brand B.
Fertilizers are classified by the types of nutrients they provide and might be single or
multi nutrient formula depending upon the purpose. Fertilizers A and B are multi-
nutrient fertilizers, which contain the macro nutrients Nitrogen and Phosphorous. Of
course, plants cannot usually use the pure elemental forms, so these elements are
delivered within a compound such as ammonia (NH3) or phosphoric acid (H3PO4). Types
of fertilizers are then categorized by the amount of nitrogen or phosphorous that can be
delivered by the content. Each bag of brand A contains 8 pounds of nitrogen and 4
pounds of phosphorous. Each bag of brand B contains 7 pounds of nitrogen and 7 pounds
of phosphorous. Tests indicate that the grove needs 720 pounds of nitrogen and 500
pounds of phosphorous. How many bags of each brand should be used to provide the
required amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous?

Think about how you solved this problem what did you do first? Talk with the group next to
you how did your strategy differ from the strategy of the group next to you?
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2) You are a medical resident and you are prescribing drugs to a patient using an IV. You want
to give them 75 mg butalbital, which relieves anxiety, and 650. mg of acetaminophen, which is
used for pain relief. You know that acetaminophen overdose can have serious health
consequences, so you decide to check your calculations carefully. Drug A is a liquid, and 100.
mL of drug A contains 8.0 mg of butalbital and 85 mg of acetaminophen. Drug B is also a
liquid, and 100. mL of drug B contains 12 mg of butalbital and 70. mg of acetaminophen. How
many mL each drug should you administer to the patient?
Chem 31A 2017, Section 1 11

Useful Conversion Factors

1 mile = 5,280 ft
1 in = 2.54 cm
1 cup = 16 tablespoons
1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons
1 teaspoon = 4.929 mL
1 hr = 60 minutes
1 minute = 60 seconds
1 mL = 1 cm3
Density of water: 1g/cm3