Enjoy My Science

I always consider myself a scientific person and I have always been interested in science. I take Chemistry, Physics and Human Biology at A level, and I'm really glad that I took these subjects.
So why do I like them?
Firstly, all of them involve doing experiments, some hands-on activities that could get your brain as well as your hand thinking and training. Upon doing the experiments, most of the times, I work in pairs and groups which helps reinforce my team-working skills, and makes me want to work with others and give me the opportunity to practice with others, share all the results that I get with others.
Secondly, experiments are all very interesting, entertaining in a way. Because besides doing it, we have to think about why this thing behaves in this particular way. I simply love the feeling of finding out a perfect explanation for the experiment I have done.
And that's mainly the two reasons that I like doing sciences.

The first Chemistry lesson since I stepped into my As Year is doing Thermal Decomposition Reaction.
The instructions my Chemistry teacher set us is to use 5 different substances and heat them to make them decompose. The five substances are:
-cobalt(II) chloride
-copper(II) nitrate
-iron(II) sulphate
-Zinc carbonate
-sodium nitrate
Before the experiment starts, I tried to predict what would these substances decompose into, and the names of the gases that are likely to be given off.
Cobalt Chloride is a hydrated compound, according to the rule of hydrated compounds releasing water vapour due to dehydration,it would turn from magenta red to blue upon the release of water when heating. Also because of it contains chloride, it woudl possibly release chloride gas.
After making these predictions, I began to put the thermal decomposition of Cobalt(II) chloride into action. After gently heating the boiling tube, I found the ,agenta crystals gradually turned blue and sulphur chloride acid and water vapour are released.
I made the predictions for the next 4 reactions and for the copper(II) nitrate, iron(II) sulphate and zinc carbonate, I got the results similar to my prediction.
However, for the last one, the thermal decomposition of sodium nitrate, because it's a metal nitrate, I expected it to decompose into sodium oxide and release nitrogen dioxide and oxygen gas. Upon actually doing the experiment, I found only ovygen is released, there's no nitrogen oxide.
This experiment had been proved to be great fun. I understood thermal decomposition reaction and concluded several general rules for the reactions of any other compounds.
-Any hydrated compound decomposes with relatively gentle heating would release water vapour.
-Metal carbonates decompose into metal oxides and carbon dioxide gas.
-Metal sulphates usually decompose into metal oxides and a mixture of different oxides of sulphur.
=Metal nitrates usually decompose into metal oxides and a mixture of nitrogen dioxide and oxygen gases however, some nitrates such as sodium nitrate would decompose into a lesser extent, in this case only oxygen gas is released.

Hello. Welcome to Enjoy My Science. This is the blog I created which is going to record my personal experience of doing all the scientific experiments in my A level years, ranging from Chemistry, Physics to Human Biology.
All in all, it's going to be a fun experience for me as well as all of friends viewing my blog.
Please comment my experiments and if you would like, share with me the experience of how you enjoy your science.