Alberta Chemistry 30

I enjoy teaching this class. In my opinion, it's the easier of the 30-level science classes, although it doesn't make it a walk in the park by any stretch. There's a Diploma Examination at the end of it, and there's 4 units. Since each unit is completely independant form all the others, the order they are taught can change from school to school.

Thermochemistry

Probably the easiest unit, there's 2 math formulas to know. But the kicker is to learn when to use which one, and when to just put a big fat negative in front of one of them. We deal with energy transfers (heat) in chemical systems, whether it's chemical reactions (chemical potential energy) or temperature changes (kinetic energy). So far in chemistry, students needed to be told if chemical reactions were endothermic or exothermic, whereas here we pick up some dandy tools that will correctly predict not only if a chemical reaction is endothermic or exothermic, but how much, with actual numbers (Hess's Law). Then we deal with calorimetry, where we combine both the energy transfer math from the begining of the unit and the expected heat output of a chemical reaction from Hess's Law.

Equilibrium & Acids and Bases

I enjoy this unit. There's work and effort needing to go into mastering this unit, yet it's complex enough to give students the satisfaction of having gotten it. First we teach the concept of chemical equilibrium, then we teach a new theory of acids and bases (Bronsted-Lowry), and then we combine both concepts. Students get the ICE table concept, but seem to dislike doing them, especially for more complex problems like buffers, where a given problem may need 2 ICE tables back-to-back. Students are taught a shortcut to avoid solving a quadratic, but seem to forget to verify the one condition for the validity of the shortcut and they just use it all the time. This causes complications once we get into buffers. We also talk about titrations, pH calculations and indicators.

Electrochemistry

This is a solid unit. It's well compartmentalized from the other ones, has it's own concepts, even it's own math. We deal with electron transfers, basically, and characterize them as either reduction or oxidation reactions (half-reactions, really). We also deal with electrochemical cells ("batteries" to you and I), electrolytic cells ("rechargeable batteries"), corrosion, a new application for titration and a new way of balancing reactions. Mastering this unit depends heavily on learning the concepts and keeping the vocabulary straight. Minding the vocabulary is half the battle in solving some of the problems.

Organic Chemistry

All the chemistry that preceedes this unit all the way back to Science 10 was mineral chemistry, which has very little to do with organic chemistry. Most students like this unit because it's different, it's simple rules to learn, they need to make combinations with the rules and they need to solve little puzzles. The hardest math is counting to 10. We learn about the 3 main families (alkanes, alkenes and alkynes) and 6 functional groups (alkyls, halides, alcohols, acids, aromatics, esters), combination thereof, polymers, isomers and reaction types.