Questions: Who discovered Californium?
What is Californium? What are some uses of Californium? What are Californiums properties? What is Californiums most common isotopes?
Where was Californium first made? Where can you find Californium? Where is Californium on the periodic table?
How was Californium made? How much does Californium cost to purchase?
Why does Californium have the name that it does?
When was Californium first discovered/made?
Information: Californium is an Actinide, which means it is a much heavier and way less stable metal. This also mean this element is not found in nature, as it does not occur naturally. It was discovered at Berkeley, California, a city and university located in Northern California. It was first made by a group of scientists including Stanley Thompson, Kenneth Street Jr., Albert Ghiorso and Glenn Seaborg. Californium was made by firing nuclei from helium at curium-242 (an isotope of Curium which a team of scientist, nearly the same as this team, discovered 6 years before Californium). Californium is a reactive metal that is actually quite toxic. Though, it is also a powerful neutron emitter and is quite useful. For example, it is used in portable metal detectors, especially for identifying gold ores, silver ores, etc. It also can detect stress in airplanes. Also, if it isn’t pretty obvious already, Californium is named after where it was made, which would be the state and university of California. Its most common isotopes are Californium-249 and Californium-252. Californium can cost 2.7 billion dollars per 100 grams,which is insane!
Reflection: 1) What questions did you need to research your topic? The most significant question that I asked was What is Californium? Of course, all of the questions were helpful, but I got the most out of asking simply what is was because it gave me all of the information that I needed.
2) What new or familiar digital tools did you try to use as you worked through this project? I used google to find most of my information which I was familiar with, but I found a helpful video on youtube that I used aswell which I don’t do too often. I usually stick to websites but the video I found helped so that was new-ish for me. I am also familiar with the citation machine that I used (sited below) because we were introduced to it in middle school and used it in other projects.
3) What was the process you used to investigate this topic? At first, I just typed “Californium” into Google to get some basic information, then moved into asking some more of the specific questions to figure out even more about this element.
4) How did you verify and cite the information you found? I verified my information by looking at other websites to confirm that others were saying the same things aswell. If multiple websites say the same thing, then it is more likely to be true. I cited my information using Creative Commons and Bibme. I used Creative Commons to cite my picture and I used Bibme to site the other sources/websites. Unfortunately, neither had a good picture of what Californium looked like, whereas Google Images did, but I figured it’d be wiser to avoid the risk of copyright issues and leave it out.
5) How did the process of completing this challenge go? What could you have done better? Overall, I didn’t have a hard time with the research. Something that went well for me was finding information and citing sources. I had an easy time finding some information since there was lots of sites with very similar information that I used to learn more about my element. Citing sources was pretty easy for me aswell because I had experience doing so, manually and on a cite machine, and I know how to use MLA format so that helped me if there had been an error in the citation machine’s work. But, there was no errors that I was aware of so I’d say I was successful. Something I could’ve done better is starting my research off with some stronger questions which would’ve helped me get maybe some more information. Though, my strategy of getting some background information first did work pretty well with me, I’m open to starting at a new point of view for the next project.
Bibliography:
Citation Machine: “Free Bibliography & Citation Maker – MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard.” BibMe, <http://www.bibme.org/>
Picture: “File:Californium.svg”by Albedo-ukr is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5
Video: Videos, Periodic. “Californium – Periodic Table of Videos.” YouTube, YouTube, 15 July 2008, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG6HyPrTccI>
Websites (sorted alphabetically): “Californium – Element Information, Properties and Uses: Periodic Table.” Royal Society of Chemistry – Advancing Excellence in the Chemical Sciences, <http://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/98/californium>
“Chemicool.” Chemicool, https://www.chemicool.com/elements/curium.html>
Google Search, Google, <https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&rlz=1CAHHRN_enUS863US863&sxsrf=ACYBGNRVNFekNEflWjUdYneJMq5-mGgwWg:1569296374610&q=Dictionary&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONQesSoyi3w8sc9YSmZSWtOXmMU4-LzL0jNc8lMLsnMz0ssqrRiUWJKzeNZxMqFEAMA7_QXqzcAAAA&zx=1569296440359#dobs=actinide>
Helmenstine, Anne Marie. “Can You Name the Most Expensive Element?” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 28 June 2019, <https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-most-expensive-element-606625>
Study.com, Study.com, <https://study.com/academy/lesson/curium-element-discovery-name-properties.html>
