1. What is Chemistry?
Chemistry is the study of the structure, properties and transformation of matter at the atomic/molecular level
What is Chemistry? by Peter Atkins
This is a book I would recommend to tell the average person all about Chemistry in a way they can understand. The author neatly summarizes the big ideas and gives an overarching view of what Chemistry is and how it works with a minimum of chemical terminology.
Chemistry is the Central Science
Chemistry is a fascinating science concerned with the study of matter and the changes that matter undergoes. Chemistry is also known as the central science – foundation for many other scientific disciplines.
Chemistry plays a crucial role in responding to the needs of society, e.g. to
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Discover new processes
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Develop new sources of energy
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Produce new products and materials
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Provide more food
The structure of matter is what determines its properties.
Physical Property
observed or measured without the substance changing into another substance (colour, smell, taste, hardness, density, electrical conductivity, solubility, m.p.)
Chemical Property
observed and measured by performing a chemical reaction (rusting, reactivity, oxidation state, flammability, types of bonds, acidity)
Show and Tell
Look around your house and bring any one household item to class and share with us (in one minute) how it is related to the study of Chemistry.
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What is it made of?
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What properties does it have?
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What makes it do its job well?
2. There is No Universal Step-by-step Scientific Method
How science inquiry is misrepresented
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Many textbooks present “The Scientific Method" as a series of steps that begin with a problem and end with a conclusion.
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It is overly simplified and misrepresents what scientists do and what science is all about.
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It does not capture the many variations that make up the way real science is done in different fields.
How science inquiry is generally done
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Although there is no one scientific method, scientific inquiry is guided by a common set of values:
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Logical thinking, precision, open-mindedness, objectivity, skepticism, replicability of results, and honest and ethical reporting of findings.
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The Scientific Method
It is very linear, starting with a problem statement and ends with a conclusion. This implies that science is something that is one-off and done.
Real Scientific Methods
In reality, there is no sequence of activities that will ultimately lead to the correct answer. You can start at different points.
It is not intuitive. How do you choose a problem? If you don't know what could happen, how do you come up with a hypothesis?
Science investigations use diverse methods and do not always use the same set of procedures to obtain data.
Facts vs. process. It places focus on the conclusion, on getting a fact. However, information and facts can change.
Scientists solve problems with imagination, creativity, prior knowledge and perserverence.
It places focus on experimentation.
Scientific knowledge is gained in a variety of ways including observation, comparison, measurements, speculations, analysis, library investigation and experimentation.
The role of prior knowledge and models in science
The ‘no’s are more informational than the ‘yes’.​
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If you think something is true, you should try as hard as possible to disprove it, only then will you get at the truth and not fool yourself.
What makes Chemistry a science?
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It is the ability to organise and explain the phenomena in terms of models of great explanatory strength; models that with some modification can be applied across the wide range of substances and reactions met in school science.
3. History of Chemistry
3,000 B.C.
Chemistry is believed to have originated in Egypt, in about 3,000 B.C. At that time, chemistry was more an art than a science.
1,000 B.C.
By 1000 B.C., various branches of chemistry evolved, including the extracting metals from ores, fermentation of beer and wine, making cheese, glass, and alloys like bronze.
Alchemists (as they were known back then), searched for ways to change cheap metals into gold, and spent time in making drugs.
17th Century
Did you know that the element phosphorous was discovered from distilling urine?
German alchemist Hennig Brand in 1669 thought that the golden colour of urine came from gold, and experimented with urine hoping that it would condense to gold.
Alchemists collected information on the properties of many substances, and invented many apparatus used in laboratories today. Alchemy was unsuccessful in explaining the nature of matter and its transformations. However, by performing experiments and recording the results, alchemists set the stage for modern chemistry.
In the 17th Century, Robert Boyle, known as the ‘Father of Chemistry’ was the first to develop modern ideas and developed the scientific method of acquiring knowledge. While both alchemy and chemistry are concerned with matter and its transformations, chemists are seen as applying scientific method to their work.
18th Century
In the 18th Chemistry, Antoine Lavoisier developed the law of conservation of mass that demanded careful measurement and quantitative observations of chemical phenomena.
From then on, chemistry slowly became an established science.
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