Learning+Continuously

//This requires humility. You must have the humility to know that you don't know everything and you cannot be afraid to find out. When you talk with people, if you are humble enough to learn, there is always something to learn. "Insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results."--Albert Einstein//
 * Learning Continuously**

In past science classes, I've performed many experiments involving testing the pH of solutions. Doing so wasn't difficult at all, I was taught to simply dip a strip of pH paper in a solution, and then determine the pH level of the solution by matching the color of the paper with the colors in the box of the pH paper. For years of science classes, this is all I did with pH, and I thought that this was all there was to it: using pH paper to determine pH levels by matching the paper color with the colors on the box. In a way, I subconsciously felt that I knew all that I needed to know about pH.

It wasn't until performing an experiment investigating pH and [H+] in the "Acids and Bases" unit of General Chemistry this year that I truly realized there's more to pH than would have been willing to admit before.

This activity walked us (me and the group that I worked with) through the steps of making solutions of different pH levels. By starting with a test-tube half filled with 1M hydrochloric acid solution, we then made test tubes with hydrochloric acid solutions that were ten times as diluted as the solution in the test tube before. These were our acidic solutions (test tubes 1-7). We then did the same using hydroxide solution instead of hydrochloric acid (test tubes 8-13). By putting the test tubes in order from 1-13, the test-tubes then had solutions in them with pH 1 (test-tube 1) to pH 13 (test-tube 13).

At this point, I finally understood what pH levels really meant. pH levels 1-6 (7 is just distilled water) meant that the HCl was more diluted as the pH level increased, and levels 8-13 meant that the hydroxide solution was more diluted as the pH level increased. Though I now understood this concept, I was even more amazed when we added the Universal indicator to each test-tube, and obtained the following results:



The solutions changed colors to match the colors on the pH indicator chart! Even though I knew this would happen in the back of my mind (because we just made solutions of the 13 pH levels, so it was expected that they would match the indicator chart), actually seeing the colors change was amazing.

Through performing this activity and actually making solutions of different pH levels to see how they changed colors when Universal indicator was added, I truly learned many new things about pH levels and solutions. I will never again take for granted the strips of paper so often used in experiments!

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