Everything around you, and everything inside you, is chemistry. The air you breathe, the food that fuels you, the medications that heal you, and the reactions firing in your own cells all follow the same set of rules. This class is an introduction to those rules, built on the same core topics that college students study in general chemistry and that future doctors are tested on for medical school. You will leave with a real foundation in how matter is built and how it changes.

We will start with what everything is made of, from atoms and the structure of the periodic table to how and why atoms bond together. From there we build toward the reactions themselves: how to read and balance chemical equations, how to measure what happens in a reaction, and what drives reactions to happen at all. Along the way we will study the states of matter and gas behavior, energy and heat, the speed of reactions, chemical equilibrium, acids and bases, and the chemistry of electrons moving in batteries and cells. Each topic connects back to something real, whether that is why bread rises, why a cold pack gets cold, how a battery powers your phone, or why your blood has to hold its acidity within a razor-thin range to keep you alive.

Grounded in Applied Scientific Reasoning, Advanced Sciences, and Perseverance, students will:

1. Explain what matter is made of and how atomic structure drives the behavior of elements, using the periodic table as a map rather than a memorization exercise.

2. Read, write, and balance chemical equations, and use them to reason quantitatively about what a reaction produces and consumes.

3. Investigate the forces that govern reactions, including energy, reaction rate, equilibrium, and acidity, and connect each one to observable phenomena in the lab and in everyday life.

Students will work toward attainments such as explaining core chemical concepts through real evidence and application, setting up and solving quantitative problems with clear reasoning, connecting chemical principles to the living and physical world, and demonstrating persistence in working through challenging multi-step problems.

This class is rigorous, hands-on, and built for students who want a serious foundation in one of the central sciences, whether they are aiming toward a health or science career or simply want to understand the physical world at a deeper level.

Class Competencies: Perseverance, Applied Scientific Reasoning, Advanced Sciences