There are so many ways to teach chemistry. But after years of teaching chemistry in three different, I’ve found that most of the textbooks scramble up the curriculum in ways that make no sense. How is it one of the books my school bought for me put periodic table as CHAPTER 20?! How do you teach 19 chapters of chemistry BEFORE teaching periodic table? In this blog post, I’ll outline the my chemistry scope and sequence. Which obviously, I think is the best way to teach chemistry!
Of course, this is somewhat a matter of opinion, and also a matter of how the content builds up on itself. If anything, I’d say give it a try this school year before knocking it. And IF (big if) you find issues with it during your school year, reach out and let me know what you’ve run into. I’d love to collect more information to add to this post.
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Chemistry Basics You Need to Consider
Chemistry (as far as I’m concerned) is the hardest science class because it is the most abstract. Atoms and molecules are too tiny to see. So we have to observe things that happen, and work backwards to assume what the atom looks like. And once that picture has been created, you can work again, to explain why substances behave the way they do. This big chunk of trying to imagine what atoms look like and how they are behaving is TOUGH. Especially for kids who aren’t super interested in chemistry to begin with.
But the thing is – everything around you is made of atoms. You’re a bunch of atoms, breathing in atoms, eating and digesting atoms, carrying out chemical reactions just by being alive. When atoms work together, they create the entire world around us and there’s something beautiful to that. But when it comes to teaching chemistry, you can’t just start at the beginning of the universe and move in chronological order. It’s too much for first time chemists.
Where do I even begin?
Before even looking at this chemistry scope and sequence, you should take a look at your standards. Find out exactly what it is that you specifically are expected to teach this year. If you’re expected to teach some kind of chemistry elective with no real attachment to standards, find something you like and run with that. Then think of those standards as a to do list. If you’re using NGSS, check out this decipher document to help determine where each standard fits in your curriculum.
Major Themes of Chemistry
All of chemistry (high school level and beyond) fits into these three major themes:
- Chemistry is all about the electrons (my favorite)
- Structure dictates function
- The macro can be extrapolated to the micro (indirect observation)
History of Chemistry
Humans learned chemistry in the macro; in real life. The Romans left their urine out in the sun to turn it into ammonia to clean (disgusting but true). They knew a few elements, like gold, silver and lead, but they had a far better understanding of chemical reactions than they did atoms. In fact, Democritus came up with the idea of the atom in the fifth century BC, and very little work was done until Antoine Lavosier and John Dalton popped up in the late 1700s. Humans are really, just now starting to uncover the secrets of the atom that we’ve assumed to be true for so long.
But we know now that the reason the macro exists the way that it does is because of what we’ve learned of the micro. If a sample of sodium will react with a sample of chlorine, there’s no reason for us to say that some of the sodiums reacted one way and the second half in a different way.
All the sodium atoms react the same way because they have the same structure. Their structure gives them a predictable function which we can see with our eyes in the macro.
Micro-Macro Approach
I’ve found that teaching chemistry opposite how humanity learned chemistry is the easiest way to do it. Start with the micro and use it to explain what we see in the macro. It’s actually a bit easier to do it this way because kids can see the “how” and the “why” of chemical reactions and take the guesswork out!
I used to teach these units in an entirely different order and I found it just wasn’t working the way I wanted it to. I could see all of the connections in my content, but the students couldn’t. That’s because I had the background in chemistry, of course! I really like teaching the course this way, because it makes my students see how the structure of the atom dictates its properties, which we can then predict, even if we don’t know much else about the atom. When I use the phrase “chemistry is all about the electrons” over and over again all year, students know to check out the electrons (structure) to figure out what’s happening!
Unit Breakdown
We begin the course by taking a look at how chemistry stands apart from other sciences. And I introduce the ever dreaded significant figures. Lab safety is a big part of this unit, as well as the specific materials used in a chem lab and not elsewhere, like the Bunsen burner.
After setting up a foundation of what chemistry is, it’s time to get to the micro units. In these units, students will learn about atoms and molecules. Things they really can’t see. This is going to require a good bit of imagination. But this going to help them explain their observations in later units. Water droplets stick to the walls of shower due to intermolecular forces. (Micro explains the macro!)
Next we get into the transitional units, which answers the question “How do chemists measure things we can’t see?” Using some basic ratios, and the premise that ‘if one atom does it, they all do it because they have the same structure’ we study stoichiometry. It’s just some fancy algebra. If you can cross multiply, you can do stoichiometry.
And now that we can measure everything, even that which we can’t truly see, we can get to macro chemistry. The chemistry of substances. Again, you’ll begin with a basic unit, outlining the types of substances. Then how they interact with each other. And then in the final units, you will pinpoint specific types of substances: acids, bases, organics, and their chemistries.
Writing a Chemistry Curriculum is a lot of work
Yes it is! Trust me, I know. I wrote my entire curriculum in about a year, and I’ve been perfecting it ever since. Once I felt good about it, I listed it on TPT for other teachers. Thousands of teachers have purchased the Full Year Guided Notes Curriculum, the Units it is made of and even individual lessons! After receiving feedback from teachers, this year, I’ve cut down the Full Year Curriculum into a smaller version that includes only what would likely be considered the “Core Chemistry” units.
You can see that it has the same micro-macro approach, but it’s a lot lighter. (In fact, I wanted to call this “Chemistry Lite” but “Core Chemistry” felt more academic.) The idea here is that the course can be taught in just one semester, and is really light on the math (notice stoichiometry is missing). Intermolecular Forces is also taken out, which I find to be a tough one for students because it is SO abstract. It can be especially tough for some Special Ed students.
Gases and Solutions were condensed and added into the Matter Unit. Kinetics & Equilibrium, Redox and Organic were also removed because those are applied chemistries and aren’t often part of a high school chemistry curriculum.
Adding in a Unit on Light
After teaching in the brick and mortar setting for 6 years, I became an online teacher. I started teaching in Texas classrooms and with that I began teaching the Texas standards, TEKS. Considering there is an entire STATE of chemistry teachers that need to teach a unit on Light, I decided in 2025 to pull this unit from my Physical Science curriculum and drop it into my Full Year Guided Notes Chemistry Curriculum. Now if I were to have Light added into my standards, I would teach it right between Atomic Theory and Periodic Table.
But in my heart, I truly believe this is a Physics concept. Light is really a form of energy. I stand firmly on the “chemistry is all about the electrons.” And yes, you can make an argument that Light is about electrons, it is only kind of about electrons. It’s more so about the MOVEMENT of electrons and the ENERGY they absorb and release. As far as I’m concerned, that’s physics. But it doesn’t really matter what I think if that is part of your chemistry standards. Plus it truly is the area where physics and chemistry begin to overlap.
More Information
You can get this entire document AND MORE right here. My Chemistry Curriculum Outline is actually more than a Scope and Sequence. I have notes on labs, working in time for vocabulary practice and my daily lesson breakdown. Yes! Every lesson I teach IN ORDER with a short blurb about what students will learn and what I use for practice after teaching the lesson. There’s links all over it to blog posts and other helpful resources to make sure I’m giving as much information as I can about teaching chemistry. Make sure you get a copy sent to your inbox!
