Most students point to Walter White as a chemistry anti-hero—using crystalized fulminated mercury, disguised as crystal meth, as a grenade to blow up a drug lord that wronged him (Hughes, 2008). Yet, over the year, students often feel bogged down by seemingly random analytical calculations and mountains of memorization. While students typically do bring a passion for labs, they have a harder time making connections between what they see, and the quantitative analysis necessary to understand why a particular phenomenon occurred. It is hard for them to see that for Walter White to cause the mercury fulminate explosion, he needed to understand the stability of the compound (entropy), at what speed he would need to throw it to provide enough energy to activate the change (activation energy), and how much heat is released (enthalpy) so that he himself does not die in the building. While the mercury fulminate bomb represents a chemical change, the principle of energy, entropy, and enthalpy can also be applied to dangerous physical changes—such as an over-heating water heater (Dallow & Lentle, 2007). Heat up the water too fast or too high, and the water heater could explode. By understanding principles of thermodynamics, including the incorporation of mathematical analyses, students can apply the underlying reasons for chemical and physical change to create products and solve problems. The focus of this unit to keep the chemistry relevant and exciting to students while keeping the mathematical skills present and strong.
