Unit 1: Thermodynamics in the Earth System

This unit is anchored by students exploring coastal communities that are affected by rising sea levels due to local and global effects, which are forcing some communities to move. Students analyze data that show polar ice melting in and around Greenland and Antarctica over time. Then they evaluate a geoengineering design solution to stop and/or slow polar ice melt. In this context, students investigate the particulate nature of matter and the behavior of water and energy in order to explain how polar ice changes are affecting communities. Students figure out how energy transfers on the molecular levels as well as on the Eart-systems level through radiation, convection, and conduction.

Unit 2: Search for life

This chemistry unit on the structure and properties of matter focuses on the substance scientists should look for when looking for life on other planets. Students explore the properties of substances necessary for life on Earth and how they interact with other substances, figuring out key ideas about charges on atoms and molecules, and patterns of bonding, focusing initially on the unique properties of water, and then applying their knowledge to other elements. They learn to use the Periodic Table to predict what atoms will react with other atoms and identify substitution for elements necessary for life on Earth that scientists could look for when searching for life on other planets. Students learn how scientists use probes to explore materials on planets in our solar system and information on light from other planets in faraway solar systems to determine what elements are there.

Unit 3: Fuels

This high school chemistry unit starts with our recognition of an urgent problem -- the need to change how we get energy for transportation to limit carbon emissions and curb global climate change. This leads us to a noticing -- there’s an alternate fuel called hydrogen (used in rockets), that has a much higher energy output per gram than gasoline, and produces no CO₂ through burning. We end up asking the question, so why don’t we just use rocket fuel in our cars and not gasoline?

Through investigating the answer to this question, students first look to chemical reactions and energy to really figure out why rearranging matter sometimes seems to result in a net increase or decrease in energy of the surroundings. They then zoom in to the atomic scale to build and refine models of bonding that help explain these changes in energy at the bulk scale.

After linking atomic structure, attractive and repulsive forces, and bonding to endothermic and exothermic processes, students still wonder why hydrogen has such a high energy output per gram, and turn to questions of measurement. How are we talking about how much fuel is in a fuel tank? And what is this thing called a mole? After building our final model to explain hydrogen combustion’s unique appeal, we return back to the big picture. What would it take to use this fuel in our vehicles and in so doing combat climate change? What all must be weighed and considered in this decision that has profound implications for humans and more than human life on the planet?

Unit 4: Energy from Chemical Reaction and Nuclear Reactions