This is good! You look awesome!
Your life is changing and your future is before you. Congratulations!
It is a great honour to be up here speaking to you on an evening that is so important to you. It is a great privilege and I appreciate it very much, thank you.
As a chemistry teacher I am thrilled to share several of my favourite demonstrations with you as object lessons tonight. You have chosen the theme “Go confidently in the direction of your Dreams” and so I’m going to use the Chemistry that you have studied to examine this theme.
So let’s get started…
1. Indicators/ “Go Confidently…”
You have just finished 12 years of education. You have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge: you’ve learned to read, to write; you’ve studied science, social studies, math, health, phys ed, computers, art, music and so much more. You’ve also developed some important skills socially, intellectually, skills in negotiation, communication, and acceptable behaviour. The person you have become in the last 12 years should give you confidence that you are able to move forward in a new direction in your life and follow your dreams. You can go confidently!
This evening I want to suggest that having confidence also means that there are indicators in your life that enable you to attempt and achieve new things. So, how does this work?
In Chemistry a common area of study is Acids and Bases. In elementary and middle school you learned that acids have a pH below 7, turn litmus paper red and include substances such as lemon juice and vinegar. Maybe you also learned about bitter tasting bases that have a high pH value and turn litmus blue.
Tonight I have a collection of acids and bases that I prepared. They look like ordinary liquids and may appear to be water, but let me tell you that each of these beakers have a different concentration of acid or base. To determine the differences between them I am going to use a universal indicator to test their pH levels.
Indicators are substances that change colour in the presence of acids and bases. There are many different types of indicators that will change colours. Litmus is very popular, changing to red in an acid and blue in a base. We often use phenolphthalein (just try spelling that) which is clear in an acid and pink in a base. There are others like orange IV, bromocresol green or indigo carmine. One chemist got the bright idea to combine a number of different indicators to use together, making a universal indicator, which results in the rainbow you see before you.
Let’s build a little comparison here. In our lives there are many different indicators. As a baby your parents knew when you were hungry or tired, happy or sad, obedient or even mischievous. They could see the glimmer in your eye; they could read your body language and know what you needed or wanted, even though you weren’t able to say it.
Your teachers in elementary school were sensitive to indicators too. Maybe you thought they had eyes in the back of their heads. (Maybe as teachers we do, but you’ll never know unless you become one.) Somehow they knew when Dakota was out of his seat, if Sawyer was doing his work or if Jessie was writing notes.
Then came your high school teachers who also saw the indicators. They knew that Lindi was playing with her cell phone, that Clinton was copying from Louis and that Ryan was lost in a book.
Some indicators are quite obvious and sometimes we teachers surprised you by what we knew and by what we tolerated.
Graduates, there are many indicators in your lives. Some you are sensitive to; others you will have to learn to be aware of. Learning to live with an irritating roommate; tolerating someone’s bad habits; and making life changing decisions based on a limited amount of knowledge – all of these events in your lives will be affected by some type of indicator or some background knowledge.
You will have to learn how to read people and situations so that you know what risks and challenges you are willing to face in your life.
Some indicators will be beautiful; it will be easy to make a decision or to work with someone. Others will make you question and second guess yourself. In all of these it is important that you have a self awareness and sensitivity to the indicators that you can “Go Confidently …”
2. Le Chatelier’s Principle / “…in the direction…”
Life is a pilgrimage, a journey between life and death. As we walk through life we achieve a comfort zone, a way of thinking that guides our direction – an equilibrium.
In Chemistry we learned about the theory of equilibrium. We assume that most reactions run to completion. However, when a chemical reaction is carried out in a closed vessel, the system achieves a state of equilibrium. Equilibrium occurs when there is a constant ratio between the concentration of the reactants (the stuff you start with) and the products (the stuff you are trying to make in a reaction).
Different reactions have different equilibria. Some may appear to be completely products; however, all reactions have some reactants present. A reaction may look "finished" when equilibrium is reached, but actually the forming of products and the reforming of reactants continue to happen at the same rate.
Along comes a chemist in 1884, the French Chemist Henri Le Chatelier suggested that equilibrium systems tend to shift all by themselves when a stress is applied to the equilibrium system. His idea was that when a system at equilibrium is disturbed by some stress, the equilibrium position will shift to minimise, or counteract, the effect of the disturbance/stress.
As we follow the direction we have chosen we will establish equilibrium in our lives. Some of you will find a partner and get married; some may seek a certain job or career through a college, university, tech school or apprenticeship; some may travel or some may settle down and get a job. Some may live ordinary lives, while others will live extraordinary lives. It’s your choice which direction you will go.
Then one day, something out of the ordinary may happen, something you didn’t expect or plan for. Maybe there is a car accident, the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, the chance to advance your career, the birth of a child with special needs, or something else just as extraordinary. Your equilibrium, your plan, your direction, has undergone a disturbance, a stress. What are you going to do? The answer: you are going to shift to minimise or counteract the effect of this disturbance on your life. This may take some hard work or it may be a simple adjustment of routines. Be prepared for changes and know that others have and will face the disturbance or stress that you are facing. Sometimes your dreams will have to change because of the stress. Sometimes you have to give up a dream and set up something new. The direction of your life may have to take turn… Equilibriums are temporary.
3. Catalysts / “…of your dreams.”
Over your high school career your dreams have been forming and taking shape. Some of them are well defined and laid out while others are less certain. But, many of you came into Chem 20 with an objective: I want to blow something up! Yea! I love blowing stuff up too! Do we need a permit?
“Yes, we will blow something up, but only in small quantities and with caution and safety in mind.”
In Chemistry 30 we spend some time discussing how to control reactions. Part of this discussion is the safety thing. We really don’t want anyone to be hurt in the experiments we do. We learned that there are a number of factors that affect how fast a reaction may occur. When we manipulate these factors we can actually control how fast a reaction proceeds.
One of these factors is a catalyst. A catalyst is a substance which is used to speed up a reaction. One of my favourite catalyst demos is ‘Elephant toothpaste’. It’s not really used to clean an elephant’s teeth, but when you use a large cylinder like this it gives the impression of toothpaste.
When I first placed the hydrogen peroxide into the cylinder with the soap, we didn’t see much happening. If we could give it enough time, the hydrogen peroxide would eventually break down into oxygen and water, but it wouldn’t be very dramatic; we still wouldn’t see much happening.
But when the iodine catalyst is added to the reaction, hydrogen peroxide very quickly decomposes. I used a strong concentration of hydrogen peroxide so it would quickly break down. I used soap so that you would easily see that oxygen gas was formed. Maybe some of you even saw the steam coming out of the cylinder, proving that water was also formed.
Graduates, you can be catalysts - you can create something new in the future.. You can be people of influence, you can be leaders. Leaders are those who are willing to contribute and make a change. You can and have influenced those around you in many ways.
Tim Quinney, for example, is an individual who loves all things from the 1980s, and so has led a group of friends to grow mullets for graduation. This is the same group who came up with Whaler Wednesday shirts and patio lanterns as a Halloween costume.
Other people of influence in this class have been Lauren Fink and Krisley Vargas, as leaders of KCS’ SADD group – students against drinking and driving. Jessica Livingstone and Jon Strutt have been influential leaders in band. We’ve seen Jessica, along with Nikki LeBlanc, Kirsten Anderson and Mike Reece be influential in KCS’s Glee Club. Brayden Bacon led the pack in Track practices. There are 14 young gentlemen who helped lead the KCS football team to a winning season.
You have seen the results of the work these people have done even just this past year. I believe all of you can be catalysts, people of influence - leaders, dreaming dreams and moving others towards their dreams.
Now it is your choice as to how to use that influence on others. Can you help push others to be the best they can be? Can you help give them confidence to do what seems impossible? And self-doubt when necessary? Can you point them in a new direction? Can you help them pursue their dreams, whatever they may be? Be a catalyst and ‘go confidently in the direction of your dreams’!
Thank you.
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