Mapping College Chemistry

Abstract

This text is a chemistry problem solving resource appropriate for teachers and their students who are enrolled in high school Advanced Placement Chemistry or in a first-year college General Chemistry course. The book incorporates a chemistry problem solving plan, one that uses an innovative graphic organizer strategy. The strategy - successfully evaluated with students - combines problem solving processes with chemical concepts that will allow students to solve the most common and difficult problems encountered in the first year of chemistry. Topical problem solving will focus on limiting reactant stoichiometry, identifying types of chemical reactions, equilibrium, acid-base equilibria, and electrochemistry.

Why would this resource be of interest to chemistry students? To be successful (to get into a well known college, medical school, physical therapy or graduate program) often requires that students get an "A" in your pre-requisite Introductory General Chemistry course. To make matters worse, many college professors feel that only a few students should get A grades, and therefore, they give difficult exams that many students fail; this is the weeding out process that every pre-health student is apprehensive about. To succeed in this competitive environment entails not just studying harder or longer, it means re-organizing textbook content so that it is meaningful to the student. This is the first text of its kind to employ a reliable, research-based strategy that incorporates a decision-based visual tool to solve chemistry textbook problems, ones that can make or break a career.

About the Author

Stephen DeMeo is a Professor of Chemistry and Science Education at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He has written extensively for the Journal of Chemical Education and has authored numerous books on the teaching and learning of science. His research interests include inquiry teaching, laboratory curriculum design, visual heuristics, and the ways students argue for the quality of their data.