Class Description

This course has been specifically developed to help pre-Nursing students prepare for their admission exam, but is a good general introduction to chemistry for anyone that is interested in learning the basic ideas that support chemistry.

The specific topics that are suggested for pre-nursing students preparing for their Admission Assessment Exam are: scientific notation, the metric system, and temperature scale, atomic structure and the periodic table, chemical equations, reaction rates, equilibrium and reversibility, solutions and solution concentrations, chemical reactions, oxidation and reduction, A redox reaction, acids and bases, nuclear chemistry, biochemistry (CHO, Proteins, lipids, nucleic acids). This is a long list, but the goal isn't to become experts on each of these topics, but to have a basic understanding that will enable a recognition of, and the ability to correctly use, the key terminology and principles associated with each topic.

Class Philosophy

Because of the wide range of topics to be covered, this class focuses on leaning the underlying language and basic structure of chemistry. It is a foundational chemistry course where most of the time is spent gathering and learning information and basic skills that all of chemistry is built upon. It will also involve some classification and building of relationships, but only a small part of the course will be spent on analysis, prediction, and chemical problem solving.

Class Meetings and Time Commitment

This class is taught in the 7-week hybrid format. We will meet once a week face-to-face and there will be online work and assignments to be completed. The content delivery will be split evenly between these two modes of delivery with the face-to-face meetings answering questions, providing more practice and filling in the details of the online material as needed. There are no required chat sessions or discussion groups in this course.

Many students have found that the online web pages are detailed enough that they can complete the course without attending the face-to-face sessions. All homework is submitted online, so this is an acceptable alternative.

For a completely face-to-face chemistry class, in addition to the scheduled class times most courses require 2-3 hours outside of class for every hour in class. That would be between 12 and 16 hours per week outside of class for a three-credit course. Since this is a foundational hybrid course it might be reasonably expected that you will spend at least 10 hours per week on this course. This might be some extra demand on your time, so you should plan your schedule accordingly.

Course Content Outline