Middle School Chemistry - Review

We finished up Middle School Chemistry from middleschoolchemistry.com this week, and I cannot say enough good things about this curriculum. It's totally FREE, but that it's nearly the best part. Middle School Chemistry was written by actual chemists, who clearly know the science, love it, and know how to teach it. Texts, labs, and animations are all available on the website in a clear sequence. Lessons reinforce and build one after another. Mane remembers things from the very beginning of the year because the concepts continue to be reinforced throughout the curriculum. Concepts that eluded me in college suddenly made sense when I went through the material with Mane. The text does not talk down to kids. It isn't silly or dumbed-down, yet it grabs the attention. The lessons all end with take-it-further labs and questions that relate the text and labs to real life situations.

And it wasn't hard. I'm serious. Chemistry is often considered the most difficult and esoteric of the sciences. Middle School Chemistry laid it all out in such a simple and straightforward way that it was almost impossible NOT to understand. It teaches all the correct vocabulary and concepts (I checked with my chemistry teacher husband) using language and explanations that you don't have to be a scientist to understand. After learning chemistry this way, though, a person could easily move on to become a scientist, having been taught the appropriate language in an understandable way!

Lab set-up to solve for an "unknown" substance

Can you tell what the unknown substance is?