If you open an OpenSciEd Chemistry unit for the first time, it might look different from what you’re used to.

Students often begin by trying to explain a real-world phenomenon before they dive into atomic structure, bonding, reactions, or particle-level models. Instead of starting with vocabulary and formulas, students start with observations, questions, patterns, and investigations connected to something happening in the world around them.

For some teachers, this naturally raises an important question:

When do students actually learn the chemistry?

The short answer is: they absolutely do.

Students in OpenSciEd Chemistry build understanding of core chemistry ideas, including atomic structure, electrostatic forces, molecular structure, chemical reactions, energy transfer, acids and bases, equilibrium, stoichiometry, and reaction rates. But the pathway students take to build those ideas is intentionally different.

And there is an important reason for that.

Why rethink the traditional approach?

Over the past decade, there has been a growing push toward phenomenon-based learning in science education. This shift is reflected in A Framework for K–12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards, which emphasize helping students use science ideas to explain patterns and events in the natural world.^1,2

This shift is grounded in research on how people learn. Learning research suggests that students develop deeper understanding when they connect ideas over time, use those ideas to explain meaningful problems, and revise their thinking as they gather evidence.^3,4

The Framework also names a challenge in traditional science instruction: science courses have often emphasized broad coverage of many topics, disconnected facts, and limited opportunities for students to engage in science as a way of figuring things out.¹

This does not mean traditional teachers have failed. In fact, the traditional structure of chemistry courses makes a lot of sense to someone who already understands chemistry.

If you look at a typical chemistry textbook table of contents—atomic structure, bonding, reactions, energy—it reflects how experts organize the field. Chemists already understand how those ideas connect and what problems they help explain.

Students, however, are still building that conceptual map.

When students encounter chemistry ideas before they understand what those ideas help explain, learning can easily become focused on memorizing vocabulary, rules, or procedures without fully seeing how the ideas fit together.

Why start with phenomena?

Phenomena provide students with a reason to learn chemistry.

Instead of introducing ideas in isolation, OpenSciEd begins with events and problems students are motivated to explain. Across the high school chemistry course, students investigate questions such as:

• How can we slow the flow of energy on Earth to protect vulnerable coastal communities? In Unit C.1, students investigate sea level rise, polar ice melt, energy transfer, and Earth systems as they build ideas about energy flow, matter, systems, and modeling.
• What causes lightning, and why are some places safer than others when it strikes? In Unit C.2, students investigate lightning to build ideas about atomic structure, charge, electrostatic forces, energy transfer, conductivity, dissolving, and the properties of materials.
• Why are you supposed to get away from water when there is lightning nearby? Also in Unit C.2, students investigate why salt water conducts electricity while pure water does not, developing ideas about ions, polarity, dissolving, conductivity, and molecular structure.
• Why are oysters dying, and how can we use chemistry to protect them? In Unit C.4, students investigate oyster larvae die-offs and ocean acidification to build ideas about acids and bases, chemical equilibrium, stoichiometry, reaction rates, and engineering design.
• How much of a substance do we need to neutralize an acid? In Unit C.4, students develop and use mathematical models to figure out how much base is needed to neutralize acid, connecting balanced chemical equations, mole ratios, molar mass, and acid-base chemistry.

As students investigate these questions, chemistry ideas become tools they need in order to make sense of what they observe. Particle-level models and chemistry concepts are not removed from the curriculum. They become more meaningful because students develop them in response to questions they are actively trying to answer.

Over time, students build the same conceptual understanding that experts have, but they build it through sensemaking rather than memorization.

So where is the chemistry content?

It’s all still there.

Students still build understanding of core chemistry ideas like atomic structure, bonding, reactions, stoichiometry, acids and bases, equilibrium, energy transfer, and conservation of matter.

What changes is how students encounter those ideas.

Rather than learning chemistry topics first and applying them later, students develop chemistry ideas because they need them to explain meaningful phenomena. For example, students develop ideas about atomic structure and charge while investigating lightning, and build understanding of stoichiometry and acid-base chemistry while figuring out how to neutralize acidic water affecting oyster populations.

The chemistry content is not removed—it is woven throughout coherent investigations and revisited over time so students can build a more connected understanding of how chemistry ideas work together.

Teachers interested in seeing how traditional chemistry topics are organized across the OpenSciEd course sequence can explore:
“How Are Traditional Chemistry Topics Organized in OpenSciEd High School Chemistry?”

Want to learn more?

If you want to dig deeper into why OpenSciEd organizes learning this way, these On-Demand Library resources are especially relevant:

• Why Framing Science Lessons Around Phenomena Matters – explains how framing activities around phenomena shifts students from performing tasks to making sense of the world.
• Worried About Content? Why Sensemaking Works – directly addresses the concern that sensemaking might come at the expense of content.
• The Power of an Anchoring Phenomenon – explains how an anchoring phenomenon can drive student questions and create a shared purpose for learning.
• Why the Driving Question Board Matters – supports understanding how student questions organize and sustain the learning path.

References

1. National Research Council. (2012). A Framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. National Academies Press.
2. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States.
3. National Research Council. (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. National Academies Press.
4. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures. National Academies Press.