Reviewing LeBel's high-school chemistry series

Chemistry 2000
Book 1     1994     ISBN: 0-920008-51-8
Book 2     1996     ISBN: 0-920008-52-6
J.M. LeBel Enterprises, 6420 Meadowcreek Drive, Dallas, Texas 75240.

It's Scientifically Accurate,
but It Needs a Lot More Work

Rollie J. Myers

The organization of the booklets is somewhat eccentric since the first, second and third booklets are collectively called Book 1, while the fourth and fifth booklets are called Book 2. The third booklet looks like an afterthought. It has anomalous page-numbers that don't comply with the sequence of page-numbers used in the first, second, fourth and fifth.

Earlier versions of Chemistry 2000 -- published in 1978, 1987, 1990 and 1993 -- had the title ALCHEM, and that title still shows up at many points in Chemistry 2000. In the fourth booklet, for example, an "Acknowledgements" blurb extends thanks to "the writers and consultants involved in the production of ALCHEM 2000," and a note exhorts the student to "follow the ALCHEM worksheets." Moreover, the name ALCHEM appears as a label at the bottom of every page in each booklet. The continued use of the ALCHEM title is presumably attributable to sloppy editing.

Today nearly every issue of any major newspaper contains at least one article that has a chemical theme. This does not mean, however, that a modern chemistry textbook can simply reprint portions of newspaper articles to show that chemistry is topical, or that a book merely needs to give tidbits of information about the lead-chamber process and the Solvay process. It means that a modern text has to explain, in some detail, such subjects as air pollution and water pollution; it also means that the text must explain the chemistry of mercury or lead, for example, so students can understand why the level of mercury or lead in drinking water is a matter of interest.

Clearly, a chemistry book can't give detailed treatment to every topic that has societal implications, but it should consider selected topics in ways that will help students to see that some societal problems can be solved only by applying principles of chemical science. The book should also show that every one of these problems involves unknown or immeasurable factors, and that there seldom is a single "correct" or perfect solution. Students should understand that, most often, all that we can do is to base our decisions on the best science that is available at the time, recognizing that our knowledge is imperfect and is clouded by uncertainty.

These standards for judging a chemistry text seem particularly applicable to Chemistry 2000. The slogan Science Technology Society appears on the covers of the first and fourth booklets, where it acts as a sort of subtitle, and the accompanying artwork includes a logo formed from the letters STS. Such features are clearly intended to suggest that Chemistry 2000 emphasizes connections between classroom chemistry and societal concerns.

The treatment of fundamental chemistry in Chemistry 2000 is relatively thorough. The discussion of chemical thermodynamics, for example, acknowledges both the "drive toward minimum energy (minimum enthalpy)" and "the drive toward maximum randomness (maximum entropy)," though it does not show how enthalpy and entropy are combined in the concept of free energy. The unit about chemical kinetics includes diagrams to explain how a catalyst facilitates a reaction by lowering the activation energy. The unit about acids and bases presents both the Arrhenius and the Bronsted-Lowry concepts, and buffers are covered well. In the unit on electrochemistry, the writers give careful definitions of cathode and anode -- which is more than we can say for the writers of some college texts.

The discussion of gases goes into considerable detail about manometers, pressure units and the ideal gas laws, and it even has an exposition of the sources of van der Waals forces. The writers generally use the kilopascal (kPa), rather than the atmosphere or the pascal itself, as their unit of pressure. There is some advantage in doing this, since pressure-volume products expressed in kPa-L are equivalent to pressure-volume products expressed in Pa-m³, an SI unit equal to the joule. As a result, R has the same value in gas-law calculations that it has in energy calculations. The writers of most college textbooks haven't figured this out yet.

What is equally important is that Chemistry 2000 is well written. I have found very few places where the writers have made misstatements about science. The glossary (which appears in the second book let and in the fifth) has a few items that could be picked at, and the word desiccant is misspelled, but most of the definitions are well formulated. In both the glossary and the main text, the writers spell liter as "litre" and meter as "metre"; these spellings (which probably reflect the fact that Chemistry 2000 was originally developed for sale in Canada) are acceptable, but they may be confusing to students in the United States.

The writers have attempted to make their material student- friendly in various ways, including the use of a cartoon figure named Marvin the Mole. Marvin is introduced at the beginning of the first booklet, where the student learns that Marvin was born at 6:02 on October 23. Eventually it becomes clear that this is a device that helps students to remember Avogadro's number.

The result of all this is that Chemistry 2000 is a fairly teachable collection of materials, provided that one can be happy with paperbound booklets in which text is mixed with consumable worksheets and quizzes.

The second booklet includes a special "Environmental & Social Issues Index" for Book 1, and the fifth booklet has an "Environmental & Social Issues Index" for Book 2. Each index directs us to some 60 different items. When we look at the items themselves, however, we find that they generally are skimpy and obsolete. Most of them are merely bits and pieces taken from the popular press, with few details and little or no explanation. For example:

• The important problem of greenhouse gases and their effect on Earth's temperature is mentioned at several points, but without any coordinated presentation. The index entry for "Greenhouse Effect" sends us to page 141 in the second booklet, where a small, two-paragraph write-up identifies carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas, tells that carbon dioxide keeps heat from leaving Earth, and mentions that the consequent increase in Earth's temperature may cause the melting of the polar ice caps. There is very little science here, and the write-up ends with an obscure statement that seems to have come from an old newspaper: "Some scientists claim there is no scientific proof for global warming, other scientists work to prove this great concern." There is also an index entry for "Greenhouse Warming," which sends us to page 275 in the fourth booklet. Here we find sixteen words saying that the burning of coal, oil and gas may be endangering the global environment. After reading these items, we could conclude that the writers know little or nothing about the greenhouse effect, other than what they have read in popular articles. In the Chemistry 2000 glossary, however, we see something better -- "greenhouse effect: the raising of temperature of the surface of the earth by infrared energy trapped by atmospheric carbon dioxide and transmitted back to the surface of the earth." At long last, a tiny bit of real science; but we have had to dig to find it.

• An index entry for "Times Beach - Dioxin" sends us to page 327 in the fourth booklet, but all that we find there is a picture of a warning sign that was posted at Times Beach.

• An index entry for "Biotechnology" mistakenly cites page 194 in the second booklet. The material about biotechnology actually appears on page 192, and it is just some long-outdated speculation about possible applications of genetic engineering. It doesn't say anything about the genetic-engineering projects that have produced concrete, often spectacular, results during the past few years.

• An index entry for "Chernobyl Accident" incorrectly sends us to page 430 in the fifth booklet. Page 430 doesn't tell anything about Chernobyl, but pages 434 and 435 have four paragraphs that give some details about the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents.

• An index entry for "Electromagnetic Radiation Risk?" cites page 339 in the fourth booklet, but the material in question is actually on page 341. It consists entirely of the vague claims that we have seen in newspaper stories, including claims about alleged links between electromagnetic "waves" and cancer. Such claims have not been supported, and some of them have been decisively discredited. There is no excuse for propagating them in science classrooms. [See Max G. Rodel's article in TTL for May-June 1995; see also the "Editor's File" in TTL for July- August 1995.]

The second booklet has an unnumbered page that is devoted to the stratospheric-ozone problem. It covers some chlorine chemistry and then makes some wild suggestions for using man-made ozone to replace the ozone that is being destroyed by CFCs. This discussion represents a start in the right direction, even though the science that it presents is not up to par.

As a whole, Chemistry 2000 is commendable for its scientific accuracy, and it seems to be evolving toward something that could be used in giving a modern high-school chemistry course. This evolution seems to be proceeding at a glacial pace, however, and Chemistry 2000 has a long way to go before the publisher will be justified in suggesting that these booklets have an STS emphasis. Perhaps the rate of improvement will accelerate as future editions are published.

Rollie J. Myers is a physical chemist, a specialist in spectroscopy, and a professor of chemistry, emeritus, at the University of California at Berkeley. He has taught introductory chemistry at that institution, and he has directed a summer program (sponsored by the National Science Foundation) for high- school chemistry teachers.

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