Chem With Com

Brief introduction: – This is a free complete Introductory Chemistry lecture course (C-ID CHEM 101 lecture portion only). I’m trying to do things a little different and my rationale is at bottom of this page. We’ll see how it works… Chemistry is just learning about how the universe works and shouldn’t really cost anything. Chem With Com = Chem For All! I recommend to go in order with all the videos but you can choose your own adventure by searching (CTRL+F) key words and choosing the appropriate topics.

Below is an infographic showing the order of topics and places with relative math difficulty.

Here are Notetaking Slides and are non-informational slides for notetaking only

These are Accompanying Questions that I recommend you use while you watch the video lectures to direct what I think is important and will help you on the Take Home Quizzes.

Here are Take Home Quizzes that will help you assess your knowledge of the material.

I have adapted much of this material from OpenStax Chemistry Atoms First 2e

Topic/Video/Key Word Guide

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Rationale:

Teaching Order: I’m trying to teach this in a story kind of way instead of jumping around from topic to topic. I’m building up starting with subatomic particles and atoms, then molecules, then intermolecular forces, then chemical equations, chemical reactions etc. I am putting the math off until they need it instead of trying to teach it all in the beginning because a lot of students struggle or are intimidated by math. I also teach short (~15 minute) math lectures during our weekly lab meetings

Topics and Material: I skip the usual introductory material and move it to where appropriate within the other material. A lot of chemistry books start talking about things in the beginning parts of the books and students have no idea what it means because the topics that explain them are later in the book. One thing this does is it moves math further into the course. This first part of chemistry books are usually things like “Rules for chemistry”. This is boring and the math is sometimes intimidating for students. I equate this to rules for a board game. Imagine a board game with long complicated rules… Is it easier to learn the rules before playing the game or is it easier to learn the complicated rules during the game in context? How many people just lose interest in the boardgame because of the complicated rules? I think that is what happens in chemistry.

Vocabulary: – I try to keep this light and consistent or at least I explain the different vocabulary for the same thing. i.e. Molecular Structure – Molecular Geometry – Molecular Shape

Things I Leave Out: I don’t cover historical things like people or how experiments were done. Although learning how isotopes were discovered might lead to a small fraction of students learning some sort of advance understanding of chemistry and physics, it won’t help the vast majority of introductory chemistry students figure out how many grams of ammonia can be synthesized from 2.4 g of H₂.

Misc: Since chemistry has a bad reputation, I try to throw in a little humor and silliness along with some encouragement to help keep morale up!

I can be reached at comyboy@aol.com if you have any questions or comments about this site.