Monthly Archives: October 2016

Important update for Monday/Wednesday classes

Late yesterday afternoon, the FDTC administration announced that this semester’s Student Success Day scheduled for Wednesday, October 19th has been cancelled.

This means that Wednesday is now a normal class day.  You should attend all your Wednesday classes as normal.

For us, that means CHM 110 section 1 and 2 lectures will meet at the usual time.  CHM 111 lecture will meet at the usual time.  We will not have CHM 110 section 2 lab this week so that section 1 and 2 will stay on the same schedule.

Changes to our lecture and lab schedules

As of lunchtime on Monday the 17th, FDTC has not yet announced what (if anything) will be done to the school schedule to address the eight instructional days missed due to the hurricane.  Until then, I can’t adjust our lecture and lab schedules.  I have heard that a decision will be made on this Tuesday or perhaps Wednesday.  When I know something more, I will update you here on the site.  Depending on what the school does, we may have to cut the number of tests in CHM 110 and 111 from four-plus-the-final to three-plus-the-final.

As of now,

  • Wednesday October 19th is still currently designated as “Student Success Day”, which is an activity day rather than a class day, so lectures and labs will not meet that day.  If this changes, I will send out an e-mail to alert you of the change.  This means that Sections 1 and 2 of CHM 110 (the Monday/Wednesday lecture class) will not have lab this week.  (Monday lab will not meet either.)  If Wednesday October 19th is made into a class day, then lecture will meet that day, but not the afternoon lab.
  • CHM 111 lab (Tuesday) and CHM 110 section 3 lab (Thursday) will meet at the normal lab times.  111 lab will be finishing up Gravimetric Chloride, and 110 section 3 lab will be Experiment 4C (titration).

If you have any questions, leave a comment on this post!

FDTC reopens!

FDTC has announced that classes will resume on Monday, October 17th. Here’s how we’re going to proceed in our classes:

CHM 110 sections 1 and 2 (Monday/Wednesday lecture)

  • As was announced previously, we will have our second test on Monday, October 17th. Plan on doing Experiment 4C in lab when we get back. (We originally had no scheduled lab for the week of October 17th.)

CHM 110 section 3 (Tuesday/Thursday lecture)

  • Plan on doing Experiment 4C in lab on Thursday, October 20th.

CHM 111 sections 1 and 2 (Monday/Wednesday lecture)

  • As was announced previously, we will have our second test on Monday, October 17th. Plan on finishing the Gravimetric Chloride lab on Tuesday, October 18th.

FDTC has (as of 9:00 PM on Friday) not yet decided if or how we will make up the week-and-a-half of classes and labs that we missed for the hurricane preparation and cleanup.  The rest of the test and lab schedule for CHM 110 and CHM 111 will be decided once FDTC informs us officially about any make-up days. Hopefully, a decision will be made soon.

If you have any questions, leave a comment here!

Another Hurricane Matthew Update

As most of you reading this already know, FDTC will be closed on Tuesday, October 11th, due to ongoing issues with power and transportation caused by Hurricane Matthew.

Waterfall

Some of the transportation issues caused by Matthew

I have not heard yet whether the school will remain closed for more of this week, but closure for another day or two would not be surprising given the extensive damage the hurricane caused to Florence and the surrounding areas. I have also not heard whether there will be any make-up days added to the school calendar or whether final exam dates will change.

Here’s the plan for the chemistry classes as it stands now.

CHM 110 sections 1 and 2 (Monday/Wednesday lecture)

  • Whether or not FDTC is open on Wednesday, we will have our second lecture test on Monday, October 17th. This should give most of you time to recover from the storm, get power and water back on, etc., before having to take the test. If FDTC is open on Wednesday, we will have a “normal” lecture period that day. Our lab schedule is still up in the air at this point, and I’ll update you more on the lab schedule when we finally see how many days we’ve missed. We may need to change the date of Test 3 as well.

CHM 110 section 3 (Tuesday/Thursday lecture)

  • Whichever day we get back, we’ll have a “normal” lecture period. If we’re back on Thursday, we will likely do a lab experiment. Our lab schedule may change later depending on how many days we miss.

CHM 111 section 1 (Monday/Wednesday lecture)

  • Whether or not FDTC is open on Wednesday, we will have our second lecture test on Monday, October 17th. This should give most of you time to recover from the storm, get power and water back on, etc., before having to take the test. If FDTC is open on Wednesday, we will have a “normal” lecture period that day. We’ll probably have to make some changes to the lab schedule later on to account for our missed lab day, but we should be able to finish the gravimetric chloride lab next Tuesday. We may also have to change the date of the third test.

Stay safe out there!  If you have any questions, please leave a comment here.  FDTC e-mail has been unreliable today.

Hurricane Matthew Update

FDTC has cancelled classes for Monday, October 10th and Tuesday, October 11th.  This means that sections 1 and 2 of CHM 110 and section 1 of CHM 111 will have their tests on Wednesday, October 12th.

As always, if FDTC is not open on Wednesday, we will postpone the test again.  The lab schedule will be updated when the school reopens and we find out how many class sections have missed lab days.

Sorry for the delay on this update, but like many of you, I don’t have power still and my network connection is by phone only and has been very unstable the whole day!  Stay safe!

 

Hurricane Matthew

[Storm track]

Hurricane Matthew Storm Track as of 11PM October 4, 2016.

As you’ve probably already read, Tech will be closed on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (October 5-7) due to the state of emergency declared in response to Hurricane Matthew.  Here’s how the approach of the hurricane will impact your chemistry classes.

CHM 110 – Sections 1 and 2

  • Test 2 is postponed until Monday, October 10.  The lab schedule is unaffected, since no labs were scheduled for this week.

CHM 110 – Section 3

  • Tech’s classes were already cancelled for Thursday and Test 2 was given today (Tuesday), so there is so far no effect on Section 3.

CHM 111

  • Test 2 is postponed until Monday, October 10.  The lab schedule is unaffected, since no labs were scheduled for this week.

If the situation changes, I’ll let you know via e-mail and here on the course web site. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via e-mail or leave a comment on this post.