Lake Michigan by Kevin

Lake Michigan by Kevin - August 2013 Scholarship Essay

The most interesting lesson that I have learned is in AP Chemistry about a lesson on thermochemistry lesson. I have always wonder about how come Lake Michigan is so warm during the winter and is so cold during the summer. I have tried asking everyone and no one really knew the answer to this question until the thermochemistry lesson I had in school. Apparently there are two main types of reaction in this world. There is an exothermic reaction and there is an endothermic reaction. In this case, Lake Michigan is exothermic because of the temperature difference in the system (water) and the surroundings. When the surroundings is hot then the heat will be lost out the system and is released to the surroundings. However, when it is cold in the surroundings then heat is actually remained inside to system. This was really interesting to me and it blew my mind. I never thought this was the reason why Lake Michigan changes temperature during the different seasons. Now that I have learned about this the world made much more sense to me. I started to apply this knowledge to things that I do daily in my life. For example, when boiled water is cooling down the heat is actually released out to the surronding to make the water cooler. This made the world make more sense to me. Although this is only one of the few lessons that I have found interesting. I love to learn and expand my knowledge as much as possible. This scholarship was just perfect for me which allowed me to talk about one of the many lessons that was interesting.