Question: do you have a science poem that can help you learn the basics of science? if not, can you make one up?

  1. Hmmm, so many basics Amber that it would be a huge poem. There are some little tricks you’ll learn along the way which will help. Like OIL RIG to remember Oxidation Is Loss and Reduction Is Gain (loss or gain of electrons in oxidation and reduction reactions). This might not mean much to you now but it will by the time you do high school chem.

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  2. Learn about NASA (Johnson style): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sar5WT76kE

    Growing yeast (to Gotye): http://youtu.be/odxvp-3nSw4

    Know your variables: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIoddS_uTbc

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  3. Hey great question. There are always a few swimming around in my brain probably because they work so well in reminding you of the basics.

    As @DJ said, OILRIG is a great one thats often useful for chemists.
    RED CAT reminds me that in electrochemistry, REDuction happens at the CAThode which means that oxidation happens at the anode.
    From mathematics, SOHCAHTOA, helps you remember some trigonometry rules. It means Sine equales Opposite Hypotenuse Cosine equals Adjacent over Hypotenuse and Tangent equals Opposite over Adjacent. Unfortuantely, this one keeps going through my brain if I’m not even thinking maths! :s

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  4. One of my favourites is a poem where the number of letters in each word correspond to the first twenty-one digits of pi:
    Sir, I send a rhyme excelling (3.14159…)
    in sacred truth and rigid spelling (…265368…)
    numerical sprites elucidate (…979…)
    for me the lexicon’s dull weight (…323846)

    Even if you don’t know what all those words mean, you can still figure out what the digits of pi are!

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  5. My favourite was a nonsense rhyme that reminds me of the order of the first 20 atoms in the periodic table. It is really nonsense, yes I can still remember it after nearly 60 years. It starts (I told you it is nonsense):
    Heli bebo can I owe fluorine
    Nena mgal sips chlorine …

    You have to remember hydrogen, then the rhyme tells you helium lithium beryllium boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine and so on down to bromine.

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