General Chemistry is a chemistry curriculum for high school exhibiting Novare’s signature principles of “Mastery, Integration and Kingdom Perspective.” This fresh, lucid text brings students into the real world of chemistry and laboratory experiments.
General Chemistry is designed, like all Novare texts, to build concepts one on top of the other and to lead students to review and rehearse skills and concepts all year long to facilitate mastery and retention. Students appreciate the smaller profile and lighter weight of our books. This is possible because of aspects of our Textbook Philosophy that lead us to cull down the material to an amount that can reasonably be covered in one year, rather than stuffing the book with unnecessary chapters.
The history of modern chemistry, mathematics and technical communication is emphasized throughout to effect the integration of chemistry with other subjects. Integration preserves a course from feeling compartmentalized and not relevant to other subjects. That’s certainly not how the real world is. Real chemists use math and writing skills, and their field is greatly enhanced by their knowledge of the lineage of great scientists upon whose shoulders they stand.
Our approach to implementing a Kingdom perspective does not entail unnaturally inserting Bible verses throughout the book, but doing the science from the faith-informed perspective of disciples of Christ studying God’s created order. This is felt in observations about order in the universe, in how nature submits to scientific study and modeling, and in the fitness of creation as a habitat for humanity and animal life.
Novare textbooks are printed with 4-color offset printing for the clearest image on the page. We use 60 or 70 Lb. matte-finished paper, so the pages don’t feel flimsy. And we go the extra mile with sewn-bindings, not glued, so the book lays open nicely on the table, and the spine will not crack. Not only do Novare texts hold up better under student use, they retain their resale value better.
In short, Novare strives to make textbooks better than any competitor, Christian or non-Christian, in quality, content, presentation and methodology.
This text is recommended for standard track students who are taking Algebra II simultaneously, usually in 11th grade. This recommendation is based on the fact that in calculating pH values, logarithmic functions are used, which is an Algebra II concept. However, the other computations in the text are fairly rudimentary (Algebra I).
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