Listening+to+others+with+understanding+and+empathy

__Listening to others with understanding and empathy:__

__My Understanding of this habit:__ This habit means that we should always remember to accept other people's opinions rather than just sticking to our own. Because only through listening to others and weighing it against our own opinions can we truly learn the most. Sometimes listening is just as important as speaking, for in some cases, to tackle a problem which no one knows the correct solution to, only through cooperating and trying out alternative methods can you finally reach a suitable conclusion.

__How I applied this habit to chemistry:__ I applied this habit to the "Heat Content of Food" experiment, where my group partners and i burned several types of snack foods in order to determine their heat content per gram. Although the procedure was clear and already written up for us, we had some disagreements concerning how the chip or peanut was going to be held up or how it was going to be pierced by the paperclip. When approaching the final steps of the experiment, we found that a single piece of tape was not enough to hold the sample up, such that the heat may travel upwards to the pool of water above. I suggested that the chip be pierced at an angle and a few more pieces of tape be used instead of just one. At the time, it seemed like a reasonable approach to me, but it turns out that the fire from the match only affected a small portion of the chip's total surface area (Worked much better for the peanut samples). So, another group member suggested we alter the shape of the paperclip, such that the chip is pierced and rests parallel to the lab table, while the paperclip is held down from two ends by tape. I was unwilling to accept this next approach because I thought that the chip would not rest at such a position for the length of a single trial. But, as my own method did not work, I thought it would be better to consider each member's contribution. We went with this method, and the results were much better, as compared to my way of doing the trial. For the second half of the experiments, we found it tedious to pierce each peanut carefully without splitting it in half, and even after numerous attempts we were unable to get it to rest on top of the paperclip. (Obviously the procedure "oversimplified" this part of the experiment). This time, I was stumped and did not know how to counter this obstacle. As a group, we used a spare paperclip to tape to one end of the peanut, so that the peanut rested between two paperclip poles. The design was quite silly but it was quite effective in terms of watching the temperature rise pretty soon after the peanut was lit. (The results of the exothermic reaction was very evident) This showed me that I must not only rely on my own way of combating obstacles such as these, but always consider other people's methods because there is no definite approach to anything. And sometimes, we might just pick up some more convenient methods as opposed to our own, or more effective ones.

Here is a picture of our experimental design: (At the conclusion of the first trial)