Mrs. Jane Owens

CHEMISTRY CORE

The Chemistry Core provides the basis for students to address consumer, health, safety, environmental, technological, societal, and scientific issues on a daily basis.  Its content defines the fundamental knowledge and skills necessary for students to develop an understanding of the most basic chemistry concepts associated with structure, form, change, availability, and use of matter and energy.

The Chemistry Core content standards are appropriate for high school students and comprise the basic content to be incorporated into all first-year chemistry courses.  Emphasis is placed on the Physical Science domain, but many possible connections to the Earth and Space Science domain as well as to the Life Science domain should be made.  The core is not intended to serve as the entire curriculum of any course.  Teachers are encouraged to expand the chemistry curriculum beyond the minimum content of this core.  Chemistry courses developed from the Chemistry Core will vary in the amount and kind of experimentation, technical applications, and instrumentation, as well as in the level of difficulty and abstractness.  The scientific process and application skills located on page 10 of this document should be incorporated into as many course standards as possible.  All chemistry courses developed from this core should be laboratory-based and should encourage critical thinking and the use of basic chemical concepts and scientific strategies by students as they learn to make intelligent decisions and solve practical problems.

Technology is important to the Chemistry Core and is used for measuring, probing, and analyzing matter and energy.  Chemistry-related technology includes probeware and devices such as spectroscopes that can be interfaced with computer- or calculator-based programs in order for data to be acquired directly during investigations both within and beyond the school laboratory.  It is also essential that students place theories and discoveries of significant persons into a historical perspective.  Students should use clear and accurate language, keep accurate records, make reports, present oral and written projects, and participate in discussions regarding the results and conclusions of scientific investigations.  Safe field and laboratory investigations should be used in instruction to the maximum extent possible to illustrate scientific concepts and principles and to support inquiry-based instruction.  The recommended prerequisite mathematics course for the Chemistry Core is Algebra I.  The Physical Science Core is recommended for students who have not mastered the physical science curriculum in the middle school grades.

Students will:

    1.    Differentiate among pure substances, mixtures, elements, and compounds.

Distinguishing between intensive and extensive properties of matter

Contrasting properties of metals, nonmetals, and metalloids

Distinguishing between homogeneous and heterogeneous forms of matter

    2.    Describe the structure of carbon chains, branched chains, and rings.

    3.    Use the periodic table to identify periodic trends, including atomic radii, ionization energy, electronegativity, and energy levels.

Utilizing electron configurations, Lewis dot structures, and orbital notations to write chemical formulas

Calculating the number of protons, neutrons, and electrons in an isotope

Utilizing benchmark discoveries to describe the historical development of atomic structure, including photoelectric effect, absorption, and emission spectra of elements

Example:     Thomson’s cathode ray, Rutherford’s gold foil, Millikan’s oil drop, and Bohr’s bright line spectra experiments

    4.    Describe solubility in terms of energy changes associated with the solution process.

Using solubility curves to interpret saturation levels

Explaining the conductivity of electrolytic solutions

Describing acids and bases in terms of strength, concentration, pH, and neutralization reactions

Describing factors that affect the rate of solution

Solving problems involving molarity, including solution preparation and dilution

    5.    Use the kinetic theory to explain states of matter, phase changes, solubility, and chemical reactions.

Example:      water at 25 degrees Celsius remains in the liquid state because of the strong attraction between water molecules while kinetic energy allows the sliding of molecules past one another

    6.    Solve stoichiometric problems involving relationships among the number of particles, moles, and masses of reactants and products in a chemical reaction.

Predicting ionic and covalent bond types and products given known reactants

Assigning oxidation numbers for individual atoms of monatomic and polyatomic ions

Identifying the nomenclature of ionic compounds, binary compounds, and acids

Classifying chemical reactions as composition, decomposition, single replacement, or double replacement

Determining the empirical or molecular formula for a compound using percent composition data

    7.    Explain the behavior of ideal gases in terms of pressure, volume, temperature, and number of particles using Charles’s law, Boyle’s law, Gay-Lussac’s law, the combined gas law, and the ideal gas law.

     8.    Distinguish among endothermic and exothermic physical and chemical changes.

Examples:     endothermic physical—phase change from ice to water,
endothermic chemical—reaction between citric acid solution and            baking soda,
exothermic physical—phase change from water vapor to water,
exothermic chemical—formation of water from combustion of hydrogen             and oxygen

Calculating temperature change by using specific heat

Using Le Châtelier’s principle to explain changes in physical and chemical equilibrium

    9.    Distinguish between chemical and nuclear reactions.

Identifying atomic and subatomic particles, including mesons, quarks, tachyons, and baryons

Calculating the half-life of selective radioactive isotopes

Identifying types of radiation and their properties

Contrasting fission and fusion

Describing carbon-14 decay as a dating method