1. Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content in the other four strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations.
Students will:
a. Select and use appropriate tools and technology (such as computer-linked probes, spreadsheets, and graphing calculators) to perform tests, collect data, analyze relationships, and display data.
b. Identify and communicate sources of unavoidable experimental error.
c. Identify possible reasons for inconsistent results, such as sources of error or uncontrolled conditions.
d. Formulate explanations by using logic and evidence.
e. Solve scientific problems by using quadratic equations and simple trigonometric, exponential, and logarithmic functions.
f. Distinguish between hypothesis and theory as scientific terms
g. Recognize the usefulness and limitations of models and theories as scientific representations of reality
j. Recognize the issues of statistical variability and the need for controlled tests
k. Recognize the cumulative nature of scientific evidence.
l. Analyze situations and solve problems that require combining and applying concepts from more than one are of science.
m. Investigate a science-based societal issue by researching the literature, analyzing data, and communicating the findings. Such issues may include irradiation of food, cloning of animals by somatic cell nuclear transfer...
n. Know that when an observation does not agree with an accepted scientific theory, the observation is sometimes mistaken or fraudulent (e.g. the Piltdown Man fossil or UFOs) and that the theory is sometimes wrong (e.g., the Ptolemaic model of the movement of the Sun, Moon, and planets).
--FOR HIGH SCHOOL CHEMISTRY CLASSES
ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR STRUCTURE
1. The periodic table displays the elements in increasing atomic number and shows how periodicity of the physical and chemical properties of the element relates to atomic structure. As a basis for understanding this concept students know:
a. How to relate the position of an element in the periodic table to its atomic number and atomic mass.
b. How to identify metals, semimetals, non-metals, and halogens.
c. How to use the periodic table to identify alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, and transition metals, trends in ionization energy, electronegativity, and the relative sizes of ions and atoms.
d. How to use the periodic table to determine the number of electrons available for bonding.
e. The nucleus of the atom is much smaller than the atom yet contains most of its mass.
f. How to use the periodic table to identify the lanthanide, actinide, and transactinide elements and know that the transuranium elements were created in identified in laboratory experiments
g. How to relate the position of an element in the periodic table to its quantum electron configuration and to its reactivity with other elements in the table
h. The experimental basis for the development of the quantum theory of atomic structure
i. Spectral lines are the result of electrons moving between energy levels and that these lines correspond to photons with frequency related to the energy spacing between levels found using Planck's relationship (E= hn)
CHEMICAL BONDS
2. Biological, chemical and physical properties of matter result from the ability of atoms to form bonds from electrostatic forces between electrons and protons and between atoms and molecules. As a basis for understanding this concept:
a. Atoms combine to form molecules by sharing electrons to form covalent or metallic bonds or by exchanging electrons to form ionic bonds.
b. Chemical bonds between atoms in molecules such as H2, CH4, NH3, H2CCH2 (C2H4), N2, Cl2 and many large biological molecules are covalent.
c. Salt crystals, such as NaCl, are repeating patterns of positive and negative ions held together by electrostatic attraction.
d. The atoms and molecules in liquids move in a random pattern relative to one another because the intermolecular forces are too weak to hold the atoms or molecules in a solid form.
e. How to draw the Lewis dot structures.
f. How to predict the shape of simple molecules and their polarity from Lewis dot structures.
g. How electronegativity and ionization energy relate to bond formation.
h. How to identify solids and liquids held together by Van der Waals forces or hydrogen bonding and relate these forces to volatility and boiling/melting point temperatures.