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Suchoki's Conceptual Chemistry: have you used this text?


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I consider it suitable for middle school/jr high level and do not find it a sufficiently rigorous as a high school chemistry text.

This said, I found the text well designed and readable. I have used some of the later sections on applications in our chemistry course (I used a real chemistry text for the most important material and Conceptual chem to add more applications - I did not feel it necessary to treat all topics with equal rigor for a student who despises chemistry ;-)

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I consider it suitable for middle school/jr high level and do not find it a sufficiently rigorous as a high school chemistry text.

This said, I found the text well designed and readable. I have used some of the later sections on applications in our chemistry course (I used a real chemistry text for the most important material and Conceptual chem to add more applications - I did not feel it necessary to treat all topics with equal rigor for a student who despises chemistry ;-)

 

Yep.  It's a fantastic middle school text, but lacking rigor for high school. 

 

You know those neat little "diversion" topics that are used as fillers in textbooks?  Conceptual Chemistry is probably 40% diversionary filler, which makes for great introduction / enrichment.  Both of our kids have used it, and both enjoyed it - the younger as intro, the older as enrichment.  His primary texts have been McMurry/Fay followed by Atkins.  Suchocki is nowhere near the league of either (for that matter, I haven't seen another "freshman" college text anything like Atkins').  It's probably a tad shy of Stacy's "Living By Chemistry" in terms of rigor.

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My kids impression when they read it at the half price book store (east bay) is that they don't want to use it. My kids have eccentric taste for textbooks and one is interested in pyrotechnics.

 

Call and ask if they have a copy and take a look yourself :)

 

ETA:

My reader likes Zumdahl. There is a pdf floating around. Also available at half price bookstores.

Brown is another one to look at in library and used bookstore.

Edited by Arcadia
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I used it with my then 6th grader and it was great for that.  I use it occasionally with my high schooler when he simply needs a different explanation for a concept but not as the main text.  In my opinion it is not detailed enough and does not have enough depth to make it a high school level book.

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We have not done chemistry yet, but I am looking at resources, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

 

Zumdahl's texts, with the exception of World of Chemistry, are college texts. Suchocki is a college chemistry professor, and he wrote his book as a chemistry for non-majors text.

 

While I, personally, decided against Suchocki because my dd loves math and loves chemistry and wants a challenging course, I don't really see what would be wrong with using Suchocki for a high school intro class, especially if your student isn't planning a science career.

 

Calling college texts high-school level is, to me, and indication of a skewed demographic on TWTM. Even Campbell's Concepts and Connections biology book, which I know is popular here, is a college text. It's fine if your young high school student isn't ready for a college text.

 

FWIW, I was emailing with a high school chem teacher who has a comprehensive chem website for his students, and he recommended CK-12 to me. He is teaching other subjects than chem right now, but he said that the teachers at his school abandoned traditional chem textbooks and teach from CK-12.

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I think that the comments above illustrate the hazards of asking questions without context and background.  Regentrude and Mike made their interpretations and gave helpful answers, which would match the level of the median high school student of the local high school of perhaps every one of the high schools of the 10-20 places I've lived since I was a kid.  But there are clearly high schools in the USA where successfully completing any level of chemistry, including Conceptual Chemistry, would be an accomplishment.

 

Even more importantly, there are also factors of what level of math the student has completed.  And what are the goals of the student and parent?  Might the student go into a science field?  Etc.  Context and background matters.  One size doesn't fit all, but I think that the OP has received some different perspectives.

 

ETA: In some cases, college texts for non-majors match fairly standard high school courses and may be useful texts for standard high school courses; standard high school courses may assume that lecture is the main means of teaching and the text is merely an attractive-looking reference and source of exercises, whereas many college texts assume that you could learn from the text as the main source of instruction.  On the other hand, one of my kids used a CK-12.org chemistry text as the primary source of instruction (to accompany a lab and discussion class), and it worked pretty well for his class for that purpose.  Of course, each situation and experience is different. 

Edited by Brad S
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I had assumed (rightly or wrongly) that this was the intended one, since it is the high school text.

 

I think it's important to specify which exact texts we are discussing, because some of these authors have multiple texts at multiple levels.

 

For example, my oldest used Campbell in college. I dug it out; it's a >1100-page, 7-pound book intended for college biology majors. If I told a parent to use Campbell for their high school freshman, I would likely not mean this book. He has others at other levels. I'm not going to use it for my freshman, even though she's bright and loves science.

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I used Sochoki's Conceptual Chemistry to teach my youngest. She is not interested in science at all and will not be entering a science-based field. It's a great course for high school for kids who are not going to be majoring in science or for science-y kids who want a more in-depth science, but just aren't up to the math level required in more standard texts.

 

I used Tro's Introductory Chemistry for my middle dd's chemistry course. This text is used for high school honors classes or for college classes for nonscience majors. It's an in-depth course and just below AP level. My dd took Chem I and Chem II for science majors immediately after she finished Tro's. Chem I only covered one topic that we had not. Chem II was almost entirely new.

 

 

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 But there are clearly high schools in the USA where successfully completing any level of chemistry, including Conceptual Chemistry, would be an accomplishment.

 

 

 

:)  Got it, but OP's kids are a bit ahead of that curve...

 

Yes, Suchocki beats nothing.  No doubt about it.  But I wouldn't consider it college prep, even if a kid plans to major in performance art.

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Yeah, I'm definitely an oddball on these forums. We used Conceptual Chemistry by Suchoki as a high school chemistry course for high school credit. We did chemistry first, in 9th grade, and I really appreciated that this course focused on teaching the student the concepts. At the time we first used it, I figured that DD could always take another chemistry course later if she was interested. She wasn't and didn't. We also used Math U See, another program often dissed on these forums as being too light for average to above average students, especially those interested in STEM.

 

BTW, DD is currently a college student in a STEM major with a 4.0 GPA.

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Pegasus, I think your story is a perfect illustration of the fact that kids can succeed with a diversity of backgrounds. My oldest struggled with math and science in high school. She never got past algebra II. But she's majoring in biology (with chem and English minors) and doing well!

 

Unless kids are aiming for super-elite colleges that have their strict prerequisites clearly delineated, I think there is room for a lot of flexibility in high school.

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I used Conceptual Chemistry with my older son and we supplemented with the Teaching Company chemistry lectures/problems to add in the math.  After that experience, I decided that removing the math from the chemistry actually made things more complicated for my math minded son.  I did end up giving him a high school credit for that chemistry course and he managed to get into several somewhat selective engineering schools, so I guess it wasn't the end of the world.

 

I much prefer Zumdahl.  I have both World of Chemistry, which is marketed as a high school text, and Introductory Chemistry: A Foundation, which is an introductory college text (though not for majors).  The high school version is just a reformatted version of the college one--very little difference between them.

 

I do get a little tired of the claims on here that if you're not using college level texts (for majors--keep in mind that Conceptual Chemistry is actually a college text) that somehow it isn't good enough. 

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...What are your impressions of this text?  

 

Suchocki's Conceptual Chemistry was designed as an overview/intro to Chemistry college course for non-science majors. There is very little math or stoichiometry (equation balancing) in Conceptual Chemistry, but because the text is more about overview, it does include chapters on how Chemistry is integrated with other science areas -- as in: chemistry within the cells of the body, medicinal chemistry, and chemistry within the environment. The writing is much less textbook-y and more conversational than most, and makes it a lot easier to grasp for a non-STEM student. There are now support videos, and teacher support resources on the Conceptual Chemistry website for those using edition 4 and more recent. See the table of contents and a sample of the 4th edition here.

 

Conceptual Chemistry does not have different high school or college versions -- just the one text, which is now up to the 5th edition. In contrast, Conceptual Physics (written by Suchocki's father-in-law Paul Hewitt) has both a high school and a college version.

 

We used it with our non-STEM based DS#2 who also struggles with abstract math topics (Algebra), and it was a great fit. At the time, we used an older 2nd ed. text and there was no matching lab book, so we used several kits/resources for our labs, including TOPS Analysis, Solutions, and others.

 

As several previous posters have mentioned, the text is a good fit for a good variety of high school students. And, also as other previous posters have mentioned, if your goal is more formal rigorous Chemistry, then there are other texts that will be a great fit for your student and your goals. You might also check out the big pinned thread put together by Dicentra: "Homeschool High School Chemistry" at the top of the high school board which has a huge list of Chemistry texts, programs, and resources with basic comparison info.

 

BEST of luck in deciding what resource(s) work best for your student and for your high school Chemistry goals! :) Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited by Lori D.
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If anyone is interested, here's my two cents worth. :)  I'm a former high school chem teacher in Ontario, Canada who now teaches intro chem at the local community college.  I've taught from Grade 9 Science (kind of an integrated course here in Ontario - the chem portion would be comparable to the chem in Physical Science in the States) up to AP Chem and now intro chem at the community college.

 

I've not taught out the Suchocki text but I do have it sitting in front of me.  When I put together the pinned chem thread above, my criteria for deciding where a particular text or curriculum fell was two-fold - what topics were covered and whether or not those topics were covered mathematically.  My break-point between Reg Chem and Basic Reg Chem was whether or not there were any mole calculations and/or stoichiometry calculations included in the text/course.  A middle-of-the-road Reg Chem text would have a basic treatment of mole calculations and also a basic treatment of stoichiometry calculations.  Since the Suchocki text has a basic mathematical treatment of mole calculations but no mathematical treatment of stoichiometry (or any mention of it at all, that I can see), then I would put it in between Basic Reg Chem and Reg Chem - probably closer to Reg Chem but, mathematically, one of the weaker Reg Chem texts.

 

I understand that some may disagree with me. :)  Please understand - when I did the pinned thread and placed texts/curriculae where I did, it was because I needed to apply a consistent method for comparison.  In no way did I intend for my listings to imply that one text is "better" or "worse" than another.  Every text has its own uses and the author(s) probably had specific audiences in mind when they wrote the texts.  Some texts work well with certain students in certain situations and other texts will work well for different students.

 

Having said that, the one thing that I will tend to stand firm on is the idea that, in order for a chem or physics course to be able to be labelled "high school", it must contain some sort of math.  I think this is probably the same sort of line in the sand that many would draw for, say, high school level history - if a student does a history course but does absolutely no writing as part of the course and wants to label it high school level, I think most people would say that it would be a stretch to call that high school history.  This is all, of course, assuming a neurotypical student - a student with learning difficulties would, of course, have accommodations that could (and should) be made.

 

I suppose I'm old-fashioned. :)  I see our local high school lowering the bar in terms of academics because it's easier than fighting against the students and parents and it's one of the biggest reasons why we began homeschooling and why we continue.  I know one of the arguments that a chem course can be high school level with no math is because, well, public high schools are doing it.  I just can't get behind that argument.  As a modified course for non-neurotypical students with learning difficulties - absolutely.  As the "new" standard for Reg Chem - no.  I'll continue to assert that high school chem and physics need a mathematical component or they simply aren't high school level.  Again - Suchocki does have a bit of math so I would place it between Basic Reg Chem and Reg Chem.  It does, however, have a much richer conceptual treatment of chem topics than some of the other Basic Reg Chem texts/courses which is definitely in its favour. :)

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Good review! Conceptual Chemistry is on my short list for my son.

Pick whatever works for each of your kids and then just put on blinkers and ear plugs :lol:

 

One of mine would be happy doing nothing but hands-on chem. Another keep asking why until I need all the door stopper texts I could collect so he could read to his hearts content instead of relying on Google. I did get my old edition door stopper texts free.

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We use Nivaldo Tro’s book Introduction to Chemistry: Essentials with the Coursera class. Not sure if that's the same book.

 

https://www.coursera.org/course/chem99

 

That's an abbreviated version of the same book. I know the last two chapters were cut out for Essentials, but I'm not sure if the chapters themselves have some sections removed.

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