CHEM 115 Essentials of General Chemistry

This course examines the fundamental concepts of chemistry: scientific measurements, atomic structure, chemical bonding and reactivity, molecular geometry, stoichiometry, energy, phases of matter, chemistry of solutions, and quantum mechanics. Laboratory experiments will provide hands-on reinforcement of these concepts. Restricted to online students pursuing a BS in Civil Engineering.

For information regarding prerequisites for this course, please refer to the Academic Course Catalog.

This course provides the student a foundational knowledge of the core of God’s creation: matter. Its goal is to increase competency in analytical reasoning by developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills and to provide a foundation of chemical knowledge and introduce basic laboratory skills.

Textbook readings and lecture presentations

No details available.

After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in Course Overview.

Discussions are collaborative learning experiences. Therefore, the student will research an assigned topic and post a thread. The student will respond to 2 other students’ threads. The thread must be at least 250 words and the replies must be at least 150 words each. For the thread, the student must support his/her assertions with at least 1 scholarly citation in current APA format, and each reply must incorporate 1 scholarly citation in current APA format. 

The student will complete homework assignments using the McGraw-Hill ALEKS system. Each homework assignment will correspond to the Learn material assigned in the Module: Week.

Students are assigned 8 lab exercises in this course. Each experiment requires students to perform a hands-on experiment and in some cases, lab simulations and/or online activities. Grades are based on the quality of results, calculations, and interpretations of results.  Lab Reports are not eligible for correction and regrading. All experiments require 2 specific proof pics and reports will earn no credit without them. Canvas cannot read HEIC files, so those file types are not acceptable.

Lab Reports must be submitted using the Lab Report Template document and must be typed.  No handwritten work will be accepted, with the lone exception of hand-drawn Lewis structures.  Students who submit handwritten work will be given the opportunity to resubmit a typed version of their handwritten report.

This is a combined lecture/lab course with the lab credit built in.  As a result, students must successfully complete 7 of the 8 lab experiments in order to be awarded credit for this course.  This means collecting and interpreting data and answering questions with no outside help/resources and providing the proof pictures detailed in the lab report template document.  Failure to successfully complete seven experiments will result in an F in the course, no matter the point total of all other assignments.  

Each student must obtain data and answer questions in Lab Report Assignments individually and the sharing of data or answers between students will be considered as academic misconduct.  Furthermore, all data must be acquired through the process of conducting the experiment.  Any fabricated/falsified data will be written up as academic misconduct and given a zero.  An academic misconduct on a report will result in a zero on that report for the first offense.  A second offense will result in an automatic failure of the course. 

Each quiz covers the Learn material for the assigned Module: Week, except Quiz: Cumulative. That quiz will cover Learn material for the entire course. Each quiz will be open-book/open-notes, contain 25–50 multiple-choice questions, and have a time limit of 2 hours.