Chemistry Experiments for High School at Home

Product Description

Sample

In home settings or schools without standard lab fixtures (gas jets, vent hoods, etc), conducting effective chemistry experiments is a challenge. Many publishers make experiments so “easy” that the chemistry principles in focus are not well illustrated. Oftentimes the learning goal is absent or unclear. The student may end up performing steps that she doesn’t understand to witness a chemical reaction that she also doesn’t understand. Home educators may see no other option but to resort to “easy” experiments using household items.

The result can quickly become little more than a magic show. Students mix ingredients and watch the effects never achieving the learning objectives. The chemicals, procedures, and equipment often bear little or no resemblance to what a real chemist would use, and they do not prepare students for the rigours of their college science courses.

Each experiment includes Learning Objectives, Text Connections (for General Chemistry and Chemistry for Accelerated Students textbooks), Lab Skills Focus, Materials and Apparatus List, safety issues, Background, Procedure, as well as any special waste disposal matters. Pages are perforated so that students can remove the Short Form Report Sheets for each experiment.

Novare Science & Math has the goal of helping educators of all sorts implement an excellent science education program. In the chemistry lab, this means bringing students into the real chemist experience. It requires effort, skill, and patience – learning and observing universal safety procedures, use of correct terminology, use of apparatus, skills of measurement, recording, documentation, cleanup and waste disposal. The best-educated students will also take some time to learn the background of an experiment, how to analyze results, and how to write a premier lab report.

The book is intended for each student to have their own copy.

Experiments:

1. Measurement of Physical Properties
2. Separation of Components in a Mixture
3. Flame Texts and Metal Cation Identification
4. Determining the Empirical Formula of a Copper Chloride Hydrate
5. Activity Series
6. Limiting Reactant and Percent Yield
7. Intermolecular Forces
8. Molarity
9. Mole Amount of Gas
10. Metathesis Reactions
11. Acid-Base Titration
12. Effectiveness of Antacids
13. Calorimetry and Hess’ Law
14. Rate Law Determination for the Acid-Catalyzed Iodination of Acetone
15. Titration Curves and K_a
16. Determination of the Percentage of Iron in Iron Supplements—Redox Titration
17. Electrochemical Series
18. Synthesis of Aspirin
19. Calorimetry of Organic Compounds

Materials List

Related Resource:

The Student Lab Report Handbook