Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

     Everyday Chemistry is a course that is completely on-line (you never need to come to campus) with no scheduled meetings. The lectures are interactive presentations in an eBook (free). You will typically need to set aside 1.5 hours a week to watch the lecture content.  While there is no physical textbook required for the lecture portion of the course, you will need to purchase a lab kit (see below).

     CH100OL will introduce topics relating to the interaction between chemistry and society that may spark an emotional response. Specifically, Week 5 of the term will address the topic of smoke grenades, present available health and safety data, and ask you to reflect on its use. We are not taking a political stance or endorsing one viewpoint over another; we are encouraging evidence based decision making. The topic is included not only to teach the chemistry of the chemicals in the smoke grenades, but also to demonstrate how society impacts our use of chemistry, which supports the PCC Core Outcome titled Community and the Environment: apply scientific perspectives to our social systems. You can find a complete list of PCC Core Outcomes here. We encourage you to contact your instructor with any concerns that come up.

     The lab experiments are performed using a lab kit that you MUST purchase and have delivered to your home by Week 3 of the term. The lab kit costs ~$108+shipping and can be purchased directly from Carolina. Or a voucher can be purchased through the PCC Bookstore (~$160 with bookstore markup) using financial aid and then you enter the voucher code into the Carolina website and the kit will be shipped to you. The link to order the kit will be in the syllabus. You shouldn't order the kit before the term starts as there are no returns for the kit. Note: cost of the kit will be much higher when purchasing through the PCC Bookstore. To minimize your expenses, purchasing the lab kit directly from Carolina is preferred. The PCC Bookstore cannot physically stock the kits on-campus. You will not need the kit until Week 3, so waiting until after financial aid disbursement in Week 2 in order to purchase the kit is acceptable.

     While theoretically a student could take this class while out of the country, there are many countries Carolina will not ship to due to the chemical contents of the kit. Shipping costs may also be on the order of hundreds of dollars ($500+) more than if shipped in the United States.

     If you're considering taking this class while living or traveling internationally, make sure you contact Carolina distance well in advance of the start of the term to determine if shipping the kit to your location is possible and to budget for the additional shipping expense. Contact Carolina’s Distance Learning, distancelearning@carolina.com, for questions regarding international student orders. You can also call 866-332-4478.

     It is required that you take selfie photos of yourself doing each experiment to verify you are completing it independently.  Those who are uncomfortable documenting their lab experience with personal photos should consider other courses. Additionally, one laboratory experiment requires you to travel to a body of water such as a lake or river to obtain water samples.

     The weekly hourly demands for this on-line course are as follows:

• 2-3 hours to view the video lectures and complete the accompanying homework problems and take the weekly quiz

• 30 minutes to 2 hours to complete the weekly discussion post

• 3 hours to complete the weekly lab

This is an online class. So you need connection to the internet and devise to browse the course webpage.