ADVANCED PLACEMENT CHEMISTRY SYLLABUS

Course Description and Overview:

This Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry course has been designed to follow the guidelines set forth by the College Board and covers the topics listed in the AP CHEMISTRY COURSE DESCRIPTION handbook. The course is designed to give 11th and 12th grade students the most comprehensive coverage possible of a university-level general chemistry course. The course relies heavily upon the conceptual, laboratory, and problem-solving foundations laid in first-year chemistry.

Great emphasis is placed on linking topics/chapters/units together as material is covered in order to provide students with a ‘big picture’ idea of the fundamental principles of chemistry. Great emphasis is also placed on problem-solving and graphical analysis.

All students who enroll in this course must have successfully completed a first-year college preparatory chemistry class. Our school offers the students two options for that first-year course: Honors Chemistry or College-Preparatory Chemistry. Students who meet that requirement, along with our school district’s mandated mathematical prerequisite of successful completion of second-year algebra. All AP Chemistry students are enrolled in either trigonometry-math analysis or calculus.

All units in AP Chemistry are covered by means of lecture, class discussion, small group problem-solving, and laboratory experiences. Students are provided with teacher-prepared notes for each chapter studied. Lectures in AP Chemistry involve frequent question-and-answer dialogue between the teacher and students. Frequent references to what the students were introduced to in first-year chemistry are made. After the students are taught a particular type of problem-solving, they will be given a ‘warm up’ problem the following class session.

Course Goals:

Over 75% of our school’s seniors advance to college or university-level work following graduation; many of them pursue pre-medical, pre-engineering, or other science-related majors. There is therefore a strong emphasis in AP Chemistry to prepare those students as thoroughly as possible for the work that lies ahead of them. In short, the goals of this course include the development in students of:

  • a comprehensive foundation and conceptual framework in the science of chemistry
  • an advanced level of critical thinking, data analysis, and problem solving
  • an advanced skill level in using various laboratory techniques and equipment
  • an appreciation for the impact of chemistry in their everyday lives, and
  • an awareness of selected ethical and environmental issues associated with chemistry

Course Schedule:

Our school operates on a traditional school day, with 55-minute periods. AP Chemistry officially meets five days a week. The academic calendar is based on a four-quarter system from early September until mid June. Extra time is allotted and provided before school, at lunch, and after school as needed for the completion of the laboratory portion of the course (that is not completed during the normal school day). A minimum of an average two days per week is assigned to laboratory work. A two-hour review session before major exams is scheduled outside of the school day. During the three weeks leading up to the AP exam itself, twenty hours of extra teacher-led review time is scheduled for students.

Course Materials:

PRIMARY TEXT (up until June 2007):Kotz, John C., Paul M. Treichel, Gabriela C. Weaver. Chemistry & Chemical Reactivity. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Thomson Learning

PRIMARY TEXT (beginning September 2007):Zumdahl, Steven, and Susan Zumdahl. Chemistry. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

PRIMARY LABORATORY MANUAL:Beran: Laboratory Manual for Principles of General Chemistry, 7th Edition

SUPPLMENTAL PROBLEM SOLVER:AP Chemistry Practice Problem Book

(I wrote and assembled this five years back and have the school district Print Shop produce these for each student each year. It is a sixty-four page manual that tracks our textbook and offers the students practice problems for all primary and supplemental equations covered in the course. It is fashioned after a similar problem-solver that a former student of mine brought back from a summer chemistry course at Harvard University. The practice problems are used both for lecture examples and for supplemental homework assignments)

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA TABLES:AP Chemistry Data Tables

(I assembled this also five years ago as a handy resource for students to use throughout the year. Again, it is provided to each student at the start of the year. It is a twenty-six page compilation of necessary charts and tables, including such things as density data, thermodynamic data, ionization constants for acids and bases, vapor pressure tables, VSEPR molecular geometry and shapes, equation prediction guidelines as used on the AP Chemistry exam, and so on.)

AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS:The Mechanical Universe (video series)

COMMONLY ACCESSED/ASSIGNED WEB SITES:

Unitedstreaming by Discovery Education

Web-Based High School Chemistry Simulations

cse.edc.org/products/simulations/catalog.asp#periodictablereactions

Chemistry Experiment Simulations and Conceptual Computer Animations

Course Requirements:

Students who enroll in AP Chemistry expect and are assigned homework each evening. They spend an average of one to hours per night on homework assignments. Homework comprises:

  • daily reading from the textbook
  • daily problem sets taken from the primary text
  • biweekly essays (which allow them to practice AP-type essay questions related to each chapter or unit)
  • biweekly laboratory reports (which, when graded, are placed by students into a portfolio and kept for the duration of the school year)
  • weekly special problems (which are challenging applications of what we have been learning in class; often these are problems taken from old AP exams)
  • one final investigative project (completed after the AP exam) which is written in the style of a traditional chemistry abstract

Students are given quizzes (a short selection of multiple choice questions) almost every week. At the end of each unit (or sometimes at the end of two combined chapters or units), comprehensive exams are given. The tests are modeled very much after AP exams in that the students are required to complete (1) multiple choice questions, (2) answer equation prediction problems, (3) solve problems, and (4) respond to essay questions.

At the end of each grading period, the student’s grade is determined by a weight percentage: 75% test scores, 10% homework, and 15% laboratory reports.

To better delineate how the various assignments work in conjunction with each other, please refer to the sample calendar which is included below. Calendars such as these are distributed to the students on a monthly basis.

CHEMISTRY II – February 2007 Calendar

January 29 / January 30 / January 31 / February 1 / February 2
- Welcome to the 2nd semester!
- Begin ch. 15 – CHEMICAL
KINETICS / - Determine factors that affect reaction rates
- Discuss rate laws and rate orders / - Work on problems
- Discuss integrated rate laws

SP 1a

/ - Discuss temperature and the Arrhenius equation

SP 1b

/ - Discuss rate law experiment and begin lab work

SP 1c

February 5 / February 6 / February 7 / February 8 / February 9
- Continue lab work, as needed
- Work on group problem

ESSAY 1

/ - Complete lab work
- Discuss experiment results and calculations

PS 1

/ - Work on problems
- Discuss mechanisms and rate- determining steps

PS 2

/ - Review PE diagrams
- Discuss reversibility of
reactions

PS 3

/ - QUIZ – Kinetics

SP 2

February 12 / February 13 / February 14 / February 15 / February 16
Abraham Lincoln’s
Birthday / - Begin ch. 16 –
EQUILIBRIUM
- Review dynamic aspects of equili-brium systems

LAB REPORT

/ - Define K expressions –
K, Kc, Kp and G
- Work on problems

PS 4

/ - Work on sample problems
- Discuss special cases of equilibrium

PS 5

/ - Discuss Le Chatelier’s
Principle

SP 3

February 19 / February 20 / February 21 / February 22 / February 23
George
Washington’s

Birthday

/ - Discuss Kc lab and begin solution making

ESSAY 2

/ - Continue lab work / - Complete lab work
- Discuss write-up computations

PS 6

/ - Work on thermodynamics
equilibrium problems

SP 4

PS 1:ch. 15 (#5,6,8,11,12,19,22,23,24,25,27,28,31-34)

PS 2:ch. 15 (#40,42,43,46,47,61,65,79)

PS 3:ch. 15 (#13,35,36,48-51,54,56,58,60,63)

PS 4:ch. 15 (#66,68,70,73,81-86)

PS 5:ch. 16 (#10,12,14,18,19,21,23-25)

PS 6:ch. 16 (#28,30,32-34,36,38,40,42,44,45,50,59,62,63)

Course Laboratory Experiments:

Laboratory experiments and classroom demonstrations are a vital and integral part of the AP Chemistry course. Often to introduce a new chapter or unit, I will perform a demonstration or two.

We are fortunate indeed to have a spacious and safe laboratory facility; our science department was modernized just four years ago. Our school district supports the purchase of a wide variety of equipment. Our science building has a computer lab associated with it that is frequently used by students for internet work or plotting and analyzing of data.

During their first-year college-preparatory chemistry course, students will have completed the following experiments that are either a part of the recommended list of lab experiences in the AP CHEMISTRY COURSE DESCRIPTION handbook or which are fundamental to the ability of the students to better perform the labs that will be required of them at the second-year, Advanced Placement level:

  1. Determination of the mass and mole relationship in a chemical reaction

- A single displacement reaction occurs between copper wire and silver nitrate

  1. Demonstration of the conservation of mass in a chemical reaction

- Honors Chemistry students perform the classic “copper recovery cycle” laboratory, involving an overview of single displacement, precipitation, decomposition, and oxidation-reduction reactions

  1. Determination of the molar volume of a gas

- Hydrogen gas is generated in a gas-collecting buret over water when magnesium ribbon reacts with hydrochloric acid

  1. Determination of the waters of hydration in a chemical compound

- Done as a class demonstration, followed by student computations, copper sulfate pentahydrate is slowly heated and dehydrated, then rehydrated

  1. Establishment of a cooling and heating curve

- Paradichlorobenzene is heated and then cooled in a water bath; time and temperature are tabulated. Then a solidified pdB sample is warmed in a water bath; again, time and temperature data are gathered.

  1. Determination of the enthalpy change associated with a reaction

- Three separate reactions involving the dissolving and subsequent neutralizing of sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid allow the students to use Hess’ Law to compute the enthalpy of reaction

  1. Separation and qualitative analysis of cations and anions

- Solubility data is gathered as students prepare a 10 x 10 grid of ionic combinations; the data is subsequently used to separate an unknown sample

  1. Synthesis of an organic compound

- Again completed as a classroom demonstration, methyl alcohol and salicylic acid are combined to form methyl salicylate

  1. Determination of the molarity of a weak acid by means of acid/base titration

- Samples of fruit juice, vinegar, and carbonated beverages are titrated against a dilute sodium hydroxide solution

  1. Determination of the effect of concentration and temperature on the rate of a reaction

- The classic starch/iodine clock reaction is run – in the first half, students vary concentration and measure time, in the second half, they vary temperature and measure time

It should also be noted that all first-year chemistry students complete an independent, individualized spring chemistry project involving both laboratory work and extensive research. These projects certainly help develop the laboratory skills of students who then subsequently enter the AP Chemistry course. Some of the topics assigned include:

- the determination of an ionization constant for acetic acid

- the determination of the strength of a bleach

- the synthesis of alum, chrome alum

- the determination of products formed when various solutions are electrolyzed

- the determination of the Avogadro number by electrochemical means

During the second-year Advanced Placement course, then, students complete additional formal experiments, as well as information activity-demonstrate labs which more quickly give a visual understanding of a particular chemical reaction. Following each experiment a formal lab report is completed.Students are asked frequently to employ Excel (or other spreadsheet/graphing programs) and to use graphing calculators to analyze data. Lab reports are formatted in this manner:

  1. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
II.SUMMARY OF PROCEDURE
  1. DATA TABLE
  2. RESULTS, CALCULATIONS, AND QUESTIONS
  3. CONCLUSION AND ERROR ANALYSIS (a minimum one page in length)

Advanced Placement Chemistry laboratory experiments include:

  1. A Study of Density of Solids, Liquids and Solutions

Students use direct measurement of mass, length, and volume, as well as water displacement, to study the density of aluminum foil, another metal solid, salt water solutions of varying percentage strength, water and another unknown liquid

  1. Determination of the Empirical Formula of a Hydrated Compound

Students determine the formula of a hydrated copper chloride salt

  1. Determination of the Wavelength of Visible Spectral Lines of Hydrogen and Rydberg Constant

Students employ Young’s Law and a diffraction grating/gas discharge tube set up to measure the wavelengths of hydrogen’s spectral lines and graphically determine the value of the Rydberg constant

  1. Construction of Styrofoam Models of a Variety of Molecules

Students use Styrofoam balls, toothpicks and map tacks to construct models of 10 different molecules or ions, determining geometry, shape, polarity, resonance structures, bond order for each model

  1. Survey of Oxidation-Reduction Reactions

Students perform about fifty separate redox experiments, including the burning of magnesium and testing the pH of the oxide added to water, the establishment of an activity series of metals, the observation of a number of reactions of potassium permangnate, hydrogen peroxide, sodium nitrite, and potassium dichromate

  1. Determination of the Molecular Weight of an Unknown Iron(II) Compound

Students standardize a potassium permanganate solution using sodium oxalate, and then subsequently use that permanganate solution to determine the molecular weight of an unknown iron(II) compound by means of oxidation-reduction titration

  1. Determination of the Molecular Weight of a Volatile Compound (Dumas Method)

Students use the Dumas method of vaporizing an unknown liquid in a boiling water bath to determine its molecular weight.

  1. Determination of the Molecular Weight of an Unknown Compound (Freezing Point Depression Method)

A known mass of powdered sulfur is added to a sample of paradichlorobenzene, and the difference in freezing temperature between the sample (and that of pure pdB) is used to determine the molecular weight of sulfur.

  1. Determination of a Rate Law

The classic starch-iodine clock reaction is performed, varying the concentrations of the reactants. Graphical analysis reveals the rate order of both the iodide ion and the hydrogen peroxide used in the reaction.

  1. Determination of an Equilibrium Constant

Students spectrophotometrically measure absorbances and prepare a standard reference graph of absorbance v. concentration for the iron(III) thiocyanate equilibrium system. They then use that graph to determine the equilibrium constant for the reaction by preparing solutions of varying composition and color.

  1. Determination of a Ka

Students first determine the volume of standardized hydroxide solution needed to titrate a sample of dilute acetic acid. They then establish buffer solutions, measure their pH values, and use those values to determine an average ionization constant for acetic acid.

  1. Determination of a Ksp

Students prepare a solution of calcium hydroxide (and also a solution of calcium hydroxide containing some addition calcium chloride as a common ion). They titrate the solution against hydrochloric acid, determine the Ksp and observe the impact of the common ion effect.

  1. Survey of Electrolysis Reactions

Students use 9-volt batteries to electrolyze solutions of potassium iodide, sulfuric acid, and lead nitrate. They also prepare and electrolyze with iron nails a gel containing phenolphthalein, potassium ferricyanide.

FOLLOWING THE AP EXAM:

  1. Synthesis of a Coordination Compound

Students synthesize and then analyze for ion content the potassium iron oxalato coordination compound.

  1. Individual Chemistry Projects

Each student has the opportunity individually or with a partner to perform a demonstration or experiment.

Course Outline:

Although not an exhaustive list of topics covered, the following outline identifies the primary concepts and problems that are covered in each chapter or unit.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT CHEMISTRY – First Semester Outline

  • [Chapter references which are given refer to the primary text. Students are also encouraged to work through Practice Problems Book . . . pages 1-39]
  • During the summer before the AP Chemistry course begins, students are assigned the task of memorizing a large group of ions and common compounds. They are also given a variety of problems to solve, based on algebraic formulas they would have learned in their first-year courses.

1. Introduction (1 week)

CHAPTERS 1,2

  • safety
  • density
  • intensive vs. extensive properties
  • atomic weight and isotopes

[NOTE: This chapter draws significantly on the experience of the students from first-year chemistry.]

CHAPTER TO CHAPTER LINK:

Now that students know the ‘bits and pieces’ of matter in nature, we

begin to investigate their interactions.

  1. Stoichiometry (2 weeks)

CHAPTERS 3,4

  • ions and formulas for ionic compounds
  • empirical formulas (from percentages, for hydrates, and also from combustion data)
  • molecular formulas
  • balancing chemical equations
  • types of chemical reactions
  • limiting reactant problems
  • percentage yield v. theoretical yield
  • chemical analysis and percentage purity

[NOTE: This chapter draws significantly on the experience of the students from first-year chemistry.]

CHAPTER TO CHAPTER LINK:

Now that students know the rudiments of the relationships that exist when substances interact and react, we begin to investigate why various substances demonstrate the properties that they do.