Chemistry: Week One (Sample Curriculum)

Introduction

It is important for you to get the foundation of the principles of this subject as we get started this year. The concepts you need to learn during these first few weeks will be used throughout the year. It is important to study every day for this course. To get you into that habit, we have a number of assignments for you to get started. There are some apparently magic tricks you can perform by knowing basic chemistry. Perhaps you would like to demonstrate what you learn this year by performing a magic show at the end of the year.

Dancing Egg Shells

To a small glass, add an egg shell broken into small pieces. Cover the bits of shell with about two inches of vinegar and allow it to settle for several minutes. The shells ought to move up and down in the solution. Do you think a chemist could describe why the egg shells dance? Perhaps if you were a magician you might attribute the movement to your own telekinetic powers.

Chemistry is science that looks like magic

Chemistry is science. Science is both a body of knowledge and a method for obtaining that knowledge. Throughout the course of this year we will be considering how science developed down through history. The internet is a fantastic place for learning about science - the scientific community created the information superhighway to faciliate scientific research. If you have never studied how the internet came into existence, check it out. If you don't already know how search engines work, learn about that as well. You will need to become familiar with finding sites on the net related to your academic studies. Cyberspace is a great place to learn. Visit one of the major search engines and see how scientific knowledge is organized into categories.Then surf the web and see what you can find.

The Greek scholar Aristotle referred to humans as "creatures who want to know.". If you are curious about the material universe you should enjoy this subject. Mankind has been building up practical knowledge of how to dye cloth, glaze pottery, extract medicines from plants, manufacture glass and objects from metal for thousands of years. Our knowledge base has grown now to the point where chemists can create materials to meet special needs.

The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said "the progress of Science consists in observing interconnections and in showing with a patient ingenuity that the events of the ever-shifting world are but an example of a few general relations, called laws. To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific thought.

Chemistry is the science of materials, their composition and structure, and the changes they undergo. Quite a broad topic! Chemistry is such a large discipline that it is generally divided into six main branches:

Analytical chemistry is concerned with the separation, identification, and composition of materials.
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of most carbon compounds.
Inorganic chemistry is (you guessed it) the chemistry of materials other than those classed as organic.
Physical chemistry involves the study of the physical characteristics of materials and the mechanisms of their reactions.
Biochemistry includes the study of materials and processes that occur in living things.
Nuclear chemistry involves the study of subatomic particles and nuclear reactions.

The scientific method has so radically transformed our technology that Ben Franklin might have felt more at home with the technology of Rome in the first century than he would in 20th century New York City. Do you suppose he knew Latin?

Science really comes down to observing, describing, predicting and controlling the material universe. Science has succeeded where magic failed because of the power of this method of learning. The most powerful device of modern science is the experiment, which is really a observations conducted under carefully controlled conditions that allow the scientist to determine cause-and-effect relationships. Developing this logic has allowed us to predict and control the material universe in amazing ways.

Just what are the objects in our universe made from?

It was once commonly accepted that everything in nature was composed of just four elements: earth, water, fire and air. The alchemists of the Middle Ages who attempted to turn base metals into gold were the forerunners of modern chemists. Has science succeeded where the alchemists failed, can we make gold out of lead?

Matter is defined as anything that occupies space and has mass. We will come back to the concept of mass and how we quantify matter and describe its properties later in the course. This week you should focus on learning as much as you can about the phases (or states) of matter: plasma, gas, liquid and solid. Use any chemistry textbook for a reference for learning this material.

Assignments and Projects