Week 1 – 9/2 – 9/3 – ARCHIVE 21-22

*Please Refresh EVERY TIME you visit as I update and make constant changes to these classroom pages. 

Welcome Back! Let me know how your summer was below:

INTRODUCTION –  

 

*Please Refresh EVERY TIME you visit as I update and make constant changes to these classroom pages.

 

Introduction:

AP chemistry is notoriously one of the most challenging High School courses that is offered. Most High Schools only allow Juniors and Seniors with Honors Chemistry already taken.  Given the fact that most of my students are sophomores that have not had Regents Chemistry yet,  increases the difficulty.  Given the current pandemic and the remote instruction days that we will have, only increases weight of this course.  

 

I say this to you because YOU MUST BE ALL IN to achieve in this class.  There are only about 15,000 sophomores who take this test out of the 150,000 students who take AP Chemistry word-wide.  You have an amazing opportunity to distance yourself from other college applicants in your graduating class who do not take this course. For those that are Juniors or Seniors you have the same opportunity.  

 

Here is the AP Data from last years test ( which was online and a shortened version of the test):

 

Now you can see that 73.9 % of my students achieved an AP of a 3 or better while the rest of the world (it is an international test) only had 51.3 % of the students get a 3 or higher on the test.   Everyone who signs up for AP Chemistry is an above average student by far so think about this.  Out of a self-selected group that compromises very intelligent students (AP Chem students) only 51.3 % earned a 3 or better on the AP test.  Opportunity to distance yourself! Most of my students are 10th graders so you we did really well as compared to the mostly 11th and 12 graders to take this course internationally.

 

51.3% of 136,016 students = 69,776 students who got a 3 or higher on the AP Chemistry Test

 

There about 2 million applicants to US colleges and Universities thus

 

69,776/2,000,000  x 100 = only 3.4% of all applicants have accomplished this feat.

Of course my goal is always 100% of the class achieves a 3 or better and I have had many years that I had 100% but that depends IF YOU ARE ALL IN!   Everyone of my students who was ALL IN did get a 3 or better this year.  Everyone who was NOT ALL IN did not earn a 3 or better.  

 

So my message is clear.  Take this course and be dedicated to it!  Do not try to “fit this in” to your schedule.

Be one of the very few who takes this course and even the very fewer who exceed at it!

 

Those that were dedicated to this task finished the Summer Institute regardless of how uncomfortable they were in the process (which is normal).  Those that did not get to the finish line may not be in the right class.

 

Now grades and AP tests are not my only focus here and of course my goal is to prepare you for the AP so that you can earn a 3 or better.  My goal is to open up a world around you through your understanding of chemistry and how it was developed through history.  My goal is for you to understand yourself better through my course.  My goal is to give you the possible ability to love chemistry or at least appreciate it and science in general.  All it took for me was one teacher and one science class to change my life. 

 

I will try to do the same for you and it begins and ends with my class website. Everything will be posted here including class worksheets, keys, homework, notes, video lectures and video tutorials, and labs.

 

If you ever have a question please email me or text through REMIND (which you should have already signed up for in the summer).

 

            Email:  grodskib@whbschools.org                   Remind: Link to sign-up to Remind

 

In my opening letter to you in the summer institute I said lets enjoy the fall.  That was because I asked a lot of you this summer.  We will enjoy the fall because of all the hard work many of you put in to establish or begin the process of learning many chemistry concepts.   I will begin the year where you left off in Redox and start connecting all the individual units together in the process so you can start to see the beauty in this topic.  Another goal of mine is to connect the 1st day of school to the last day and every day in between. EVERYTHING CONNECTS!!   Lets Go!

 

Homework Prior to 9/2:

 

1. Please have hard copies of your labs that you competed this summer and the redox  

     module. I will collect on your first in person day. If can you can scan them and email them to me     

     that would be a bonus!

 

2.  Please log into your AP Central Account (or create one) and join the AP Chemistry class

     (AP Classroom). The AP coordinator at our school must use those online accounts to order AP         tests in the spring. IF you do not log in or create an account you risk not having an AP test to           take in the spring (regardless if you paid for it or not). The Join codes per class are posted below.

 

3.  Also make sure you have a private gmail account that you should of established this summer.   

    School gmail account do not allow any incoming mail that is not from the school server.  That

    means you will not get keys or results from forms if you use the school email account.

 

4.  Complete the Introduction  Form – this will count as your first Quiz Grade.

      It will cover all of the introductory information given above.

 

Please follow the instructions with this link below to join the Ap Classroom:

https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/join-your-class-online

 

Period 2 Class: 2(A-B) 3(A) Join code: VA4RNY

 

Period 4 Class: 3(B) 4(A-B) Join code:  VNMALL

9/2 – Thursday A Day –