Pre-AP Chemistry

Overview

Pre-AP Chemistry focuses on students developing a deep conceptual understanding of matter and energy at the molecular level by asking students to explain their macroscopic observations using particulate-level reasoning. The Pre-AP Chemistry course emphasizes the integration of content with science practices—powerful reasoning tools that support students in analyzing the natural world around them. Having this ability is one of the hallmarks of scientific literacy and is critical for numerous college and career endeavors in science and the social sciences

Areas of Focus

The Pre-AP science areas of focus, shown below, are science practices that students develop and leverage as they engage with content. They were identified through educator feedback and research about where students and teachers need the most curriculum support. These areas of focus are vertically aligned to the science practices embedded in other science courses in high school, including AP, and in college, giving students multiple opportunities to strengthen and deepen their work with these skills throughout their educational career. They also support and align to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and AP science practices of theory building and refinement.

Pre-AP Chemistry Areas of Focus:

• Attention to modeling: Students develop and refine models to connect macroscopic observations to structure, motion, and interactions occurring at the atomic scale.
• Strategic use of mathematics: Students integrate mathematics with conceptual understanding to model chemical phenomena.
• Emphasis on analytical reading and writing: Students engage in analytical reading and writing to gain, retain, and apply scientific knowledge and to carry out scientific argumentation.

Underlying Unit Foundations

These big ideas are addressed across units:

• Structure and Properties: All matter is composed of particles that are in constant motion and interact with one another. This movement and interaction is responsible for the observable properties of matter. Observed properties can be used to infer the number and type(s) of particle(s) in a sample of matter.
• Energy: Energy is transferred in all physical and chemical processes. During these processes, energy is either redistributed within the system or between systems.
• Transformations: At its heart, chemistry is about rearrangements of matter. These rearrangements, or transformations, involve the breaking and forming of intermolecular forces or chemical bonds. Macroscopic observations can be used to quantify and describe these rearrangements at the atomic scale.

Course at a Glance

The tables below show the four main units in Pre-AP Chemistry, the recommended length for each unit, and the key topics in each.

Instructional Resources

Schools that officially implement a Pre-AP course will receive access to instructional resources for each unit. These resources don’t constitute a full day-by-day curriculum. Instead, they provide support for teachers as they design their instruction for each Pre-AP Chemistry unit.

Pre-AP Chemistry instructional resources include:

• A course framework: the framework defines what students should know and be able to do by the end of the course. It serves as an anchor for model lessons and assessments, and it is the primary document teachers can use to align instruction to course content.
• Teacher resources, available in print and online, include a robust set of model lessons that demonstrate how to translate the course framework, shared principles, and areas of focus into daily instruction.

Additional resources: Pre-AP Chemistry does require additional resources to use in the model lessons. This list is divided into three categories: general consumable items that are generally replaced yearly, chemicals that will need to be replaced regularly, and general stock room equipment. The general consumable materials and chemicals have the unit when they are used listed.

The majority of these items are commonly found in science stock rooms and are low tech and low cost; this ensures all students can engage in inquiry-based investigations and reasoning.

Assessments for Learning

Each unit contains:

• Short, open-ended formative assessment problems or questions embedded in some model lessons to show the targeted content and skills, related to the lesson’s learning objectives, that students should master.
• Two online learning checkpoints per unit that feature multiple-choice and technology-enhanced questions modeled closely after the types of questions students encounter on SAT tests and AP Exams. Learning checkpoints require students to examine graphs, data, and short texts— often set in authentic contexts—to respond to a targeted set of questions that measure student understanding of the unit’s concepts and skills.
• One performance task per unit that engages students in sustained problem solving and asks them to synthesize the unit’s skills and concepts to answer questions about a novel context.
• One performance task with scoring guidelines and instructional support suggestions for each unit.