Chemistry An AtomsFocused Approach with Ebook, Smartwork, and Animations

The first atoms-focused text and assessment package for the AP® course

Fully aligned to the latest College Board’s curriculum framework, Chemistry: An Atoms-Focused Approach helps students understand chemistry at the micro, macro, and symbolic level. Author and chemistry education researcher, Stacey Lowery Bretz has incorporated her research on how students construct and interpret multiple representations into clear visualization pedagogy, which emphasizes the particulate nature of matter and helps students become expert problem solvers. This pedagogy extends beyond the book into the AP® teaching, learning, and assessment package.



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Thomas R. Gilbert has a BS in chemistry from Clarkson and a PhD in analytical chemistry from MIT. After 10 years with the Research Department of the New England Aquarium in Boston, he joined the faculty of Northeastern University, where he is currently associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology. His research interests are in chemical and science education. He teaches general chemistry and science education courses and conducts professional development workshops for K–12 teachers. He has won Northeastern’s Excellence in Teaching Award and Outstanding Teacher of First-Year Engineering Students Award. He is a fellow of the American Chemical Society and in 2012 was elected to the ACS Board of Directors.

Rein V. Kirss received both a BS in chemistry and a BA in history as well as an MA in chemistry from SUNY Buffalo. He received his PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where the seeds for this textbook were undoubtedly planted. After two years of postdoctoral study at the University of Rochester, he spent a year at Advanced Technology Materials, Inc., before returning to academics at Northeastern University in 1989. He is an associate professor of chemistry with an active research interest in organometallic chemistry.

Stacey Lowery Bretz is the Dean of the Getty College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio Northern University, where she holds the rank of professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. For 28 years, she taught general chemistry to thousands of students. At Miami University, she held the rank of University Distinguished Professor and was honored with the Benjamin Harrison Medallion for “outstanding contribution to the education of the nation.” She has mentored 60+ post-docs and research students, with 25 of her former mentees teaching chemistry at colleges, universities, and high schools. Together, they have authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles and given over 500 keynotes, seminars, and conference presentations. Her research investigates students’ learning of chemistry, with expertise in developing assessments of students’ thinking in the laboratory and with multiple representations of molecules and compounds. Dr. Bretz is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS), is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was an American Council on Education Fellow in the Office of the Chancellor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She served on the National Research Council Committee on Discipline-Based Education Research, and she chaired the Gordon Conference on Chemistry Education Research and Practice. Her colleagues honored her with the 2020 ACS Award for Achievement in Research on Teaching and Learning of Chemistry. Dr. Bretz served for three years in the Chair succession of the ACS Division of Chemical Education. She earned her BA in chemistry from Cornell University, her MS from the Pennsylvania State University, her Ph.D. in chemistry education research (CER) from Cornell University, and completed a post-doc at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Chemistry.

Natalie Foster is emeritus professor of chemistry at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She received a BS in chemistry from Muhlenberg College and MS, DA, and PhD degrees from Lehigh University. Her research interests included studying poly(vinyl alcohol) gels by NMR as part of a larger interest in porphyrins and phthalocyanines as candidate contrast enhancement agents for MRI. She taught both semesters of the introductory chemistry class to engineering, biology, and other nonchemistry majors and a spectral analysis course at the graduate level. She is the recipient of the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for distinguished teaching.

Todd Abronowitz has taught chemistry since 1990 and currently teaches at Parish Episcopal School in Dallas, Texas. For all but five of those years, he has taught AP® Chemistry. He received his BS from Eastern Michigan University and his MS in Chemistry from Texas A&M University-Commerce. Since 2003 he has conducted College Board workshops, training teachers across the country. He has received numerous awards including NMSI All-American Teacher of the Year, Radio Shack National Teacher Award, ACT2 Outstanding Chemistry Teacher in Texas, Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year and the Shultz Award from the American Chemical Society. He was also featured in the book Top Texas Teachers as one of the top 35 educators in the state of Texas.