Principles of Chemistry, CHE102
Summer 2020

Class Objectives

This course will provide an opportunity for students to recognize and explain basic chemical principles including:

• The Basic Structure of the Atom
• How Atoms Combine to Make New Substances
• Chemical Reactions
• Reaction Rates
• Equilibrium
• Solutions
• Basic Nuclear Chemistry
• Basic Biochemistry.

The material covered in this course will prepare students for further study in chemistry and the natural sciences. It is also the same material that is covered in the HESI Admission Assessment Exam Review text for pre-nursing students and corresponds to the material covered in the TEAS pre-nursing exam.

Chemistry is one of the fundamental sciences. All physical matter is made up of atoms. The study of chemistry is a study of how atoms rearrange themselves to make new substances and how the atoms and new substances interact with each other. These interactions explain the beauty and wonder of the world around us.

So, one of the objectives of the course is to provide enough background to be able to see how the physical world operates at a very fundamental level. It can be interesting and even fun!

Studying chemistry also has good side effects. Many programs require a course like this, not for the content, but for the experience. This course can help refine some focus, critical thinking, and problem solving abilities in your life.

Course Components

The course will have three major modules:

1. Building Matter: Compounds and Molecules
   1. Matter and Atoms
   2. Combining Atoms - Making Compounds
   3. Combining Atoms - Making Molecules
2. Rearranging Atoms to Form New Substances: Chemical Changes
   1. Keeping Balance - Conserving Atoms
   2. Categories of Reactions and Other Reaction Considerations
3. Applications and Odds and Ends
   1. Solutions and Nuclear Chemistry
   2. Odds and Ends
   3. Biochemistry

This class will begin with the first major module listed and proceed down the list in the order given as shown in the Modules view of Canvas. Each section will have 4-5 individual webpages to study. Each webpage will have some short answer homework questions associated with it and a "pre-quiz" that can be retaken as many times as desired. There will also be a graded quiz for each page, each section, each heading, and an overall graded quiz for the course. This should help to prepare those students who will be taking the HESI or the TEAS exam, which is the major emphasis of the course.

The Plan

This summer course is taught in a 7-week completely online format. There will be online work and assignments to be completed twice a week. The plan is to have short page homework and pre-quizzes due early each week which will prepare for the graded quizzes that will be due later in the week. All of the due dates are given in Canvas. For our class this means that homework will be due on Tuesday and Friday mornings at 6 am. Think of this as a Monday and Thursday night course, but homework for the course isn't due until the next morning at 6 am.

If you are concerned about not meeting face-to-face, consider dropping this online class and taking the hybrid version of the class during the second term in the fall or spring.

For a completely face-to-face chemistry class, in addition to the scheduled class times most courses require 2-3 hours outside of class for every hour in class. That would be between 12 and 16 hours per week outside of class for a three-credit course. Since this is a foundational course it might be reasonably expected that you could spend at least 10 hours per week on this course. This might be some extra demand on your time, so you should plan your schedule accordingly.

Grading

The course will have several different categories of homework and quizzes. Since most students in the class are preparing for a multiple choice exam that includes chemistry, we will emphasize quizzes as shown in the following grading breakdown. There will not be a time limit on any of the quizzes.

1. Page Homework: 5% of the overall grade. On each page there will be questions at the bottom that are to be submitted for credit. They will be spot checked, but not graded and returned. The answers to these questions are found on the pages and they will be in an email that will be sent when you submit the homework. The grade for this category will be the percent of the homework submitted.
2. Page pre-quizzes: 5% of the overall grade. These will be quizzes on the content of individual pages. You can take these quizzes as many times as desired and the highest score will be kept and go toward your grade for this category.
3. Page quizzes, section quizzes, and major modular quizzes: 50% of the overall grade. The page quizzes will be over individual pages, like the pre-quizzes. The section quizzes will cover all of the pages in a section (usually 3-5 pages). The major modular quizzes will be over all of the two or three sections of that module. The page, section, and major modular quizzes can be taken twice and the highest score will be used toward the grade. The 60 point quizzes will be given one question at a time, but the quiz can still be taken twice.
4. Final quiz: 40% of the overall grade. This will cover all of the material covered in the course and it can only be taken once. There will not be a time limit on the final quiz.

All of the homework assignments, in the order that they are to be completed, are shown on the "Modules" page in Canvas. We will be using the module view in this course. The weight of each assessment and the overall current grade for the course is given on the Canvas "Grades" page. We will use these numbers and Rivier's numerical grading scheme to determine the final grade. Note that all homework is to be submitted online.

Attendance/Discussion Groups

Attendance is not included in the grading scheme for this class. There is no required chat or discussion group in this class. Most issues can be addressed through Rivier email and the Canvas homepage. The instructor has a fast email turn-around time, but he is never available on Sunday. A conference session can be set up if you would like to communicate directly instead of through email. Just let the instructor know.

To accommodate the registrar, submission of homework will count as attendance. If you are submitting homework you will be counted as attending class. To submit homework you will need to input your username which is the first initial of your first name and your last name, all lowercase without any spaces.

Academic Policies

A link to Academic Policies at Rivier and for this class can be found on our homepage. On our class policy page (http://www.rivier.edu/chemistry/policies/) specific statements have been extracted from the policies common to all undergraduate courses at Rivier University (http://www.rivier.edu/undergradcoursepolicies, will open in a new tab), on Attendance, Habitual Non-Attendance, Academic Assessment, Academic Honesty, Classroom Behavior, Electronic Devices and Students With Disabilities. You are expected to be familiar with these policies and adhere to them as they apply to an online course.

Class Description

This course has been specifically developed to help pre-Nursing students prepare for their admission exam, but is a good general introduction to chemistry for anyone that is interested in learning the basic ideas that support chemistry.

The specific topics that are suggested for pre-nursing students preparing for the HESI Admission Assessment Exam are: scientific notation, the metric system, temperature scales, atomic structure and the periodic table, chemical equations, reaction rates, equilibrium and reversibility, solutions and solution concentrations, chemical reactions, oxidation and reduction, redox reactions, acids and bases, nuclear chemistry, and biochemistry (Carbohydrates, Proteins, lipids, nucleic acids). This is a long list, but the goal isn't to become experts on each of these topics, but to have a basic understanding that will enable a recognition of, and the ability to correctly use, the key terminology and principles associated with each topic.

Class Philosophy

Because of the wide range of topics to be covered, this class focuses on learning the underlying language and basic structure of chemistry. It is a foundational chemistry course where most of the time is spent gathering and learning information and basic skills that all of chemistry is built upon. It will also involve some classification and building of relationships, but only a small part of the course will be spent on analysis, prediction, and chemical problem solving.

Textbook

This course will use an online textbook written by Dr. Burgess. All pages can be accessed through canvas, so there is no need to go directly to the website unless you are looking for a more traditional kind of course menu setup. All quizzes must be taken through Canvas. The HESI Admission Assessment Exam Review text has a chapter about chemistry that may be helpful, especially for those preparing for that exam. I also have a link to An Introduction to Chemistry by Mark Bishop which is an online text that can be used as a reference. A donation for using the online book is expected if you use the book more than occasionally. In addition, I am also reviewing Understanding Chemistry in Our World by Coast Learning Systems as a possible resource text for the course. There are also many sites online that are intended to help prepare for the TEAS exam.