A Drop in the Ocean

Damon Diemente
Trinity School, 101 West 91st Street, New York, NY 10024
J. Chem. Educ., 2000, 77 (8), p 1010
DOI: 10.1021/ed077p1010
Publication Date (Web): August 1, 2000
History, Education, and Documentation

Abstract

Teachers of high-school chemistry customarily use calculations done as in-class exercises or as demonstrations to impress their students with the enormity of Avogadro's number and the concomitant miniscularity of atoms and molecules. This article presents and works out one such calculation. We are asked to imagine filling the entire volume of all the oceans on Earth a scoop at a time, using a 100-mL beaker as a ladle. We find that the beaker holds 170 times as many water molecules as there are beakerfuls of water in the oceans.

Keywords (Audience):

High School / Introductory Chemistry

Keywords (Feature):

Applications and Analogies

Keywords (Pedagogy):

Analogies / Transfer

Keywords (Subject):

Stoichiometry
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  • Received: August 03, 2009

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