Taking+Responsible+Risks

Taking Responsible Risks
In our most recent lab design, Lynette, Emily, and I were testing the effect concentration had on our battery cell. We had two metals, and their aqueous solutions, Magnesium Oxide and Zinc Nitrate. We were going to alter the concentrations of these two solutions by measuring the electricity formed in the .5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 M solutions.

We only had one problem. We didn't have these solutions. At that point we had two options. We could either order the solutions from the lab, or create our own using the solid form of the compounds and water. If we waited, we'd end up pushing the deadline of our lab, and we didn't want to postpone our experimenting, after all, we were pretty eager to start. If we made our own solutions, it would be relatively time consuming, but we'd have our solutions in about forty minutes. However, we also had to face the fact that if we made our own solutions, they might not be accurate as the ones professionally made.

We decided we couldn't wait, and we made our own solutions. Our results came out to make absolutely no sense, and there was no pattern or trend at all. While this could be attributed to the inaccuracy of our solutions, chances are, even with our ready made solutions, the results would remain the same. This was a responsible risk, while we did risk our accuracy, we wanted to practice what we had learned in prior lessons, and we had constructed our solutions with a large amount of caution. Our results were not ideal, but let's face it, sometimes things just don't turn out the way you want them to.