Honors Chemistry is a first-year chemistry course designed specifically to meet the needs of motivated students. This is an experimental science course that combines academic study with the acquisition of practical and investigational skills. This course should be taken as preparation for IB Biology and/or IB Chemistry courses and is recommended for students planning to take advanced science courses in college and to enter a science-related field. The first semester of this course presents basic ideas of chemistry, employing a lab-centered approach. Students develop chemical principles as an outgrowth of experiments, demonstrations and through independent and group research investigations. Topics presented include matter and its classification, properties and changes of matter, atomic structure, periodicity, bonding concepts, and stoichiometry. Second semester topics include advanced stoichiometry, Kinetic Molecular Theory, states of matter, solutions and solubility, chemical kinetics and equilibrium principles, acid-base theory, and thermodynamics.