1. Module 2 Intro

1.1. Big Picture

Big Picture

Module 2—Chemical Compounds

Big Picture

 

The forces involved in chemical bonding play an integral role in daily life.

 

A painting showing a buffalo hunt as traditionally done by First Nations, where buffalo were killed by male hunters using spears.

© 2007 Jupiterimages Corporation

Settlers to North America used information from local First Nations people, as well as their own intuition, to develop recipes for foods, cleaning products, and weatherproofing that used natural materials (organic and inorganic substances). They found these substances locally or received them by trading with other groups. The substances developed by these people are examples of chemical technologies that have evolved into the commercial products used today.

 

A photograph of a man examining a beaver pelt. The person is within a wooden building with many older technologies like oil lamps and power-loaded rifles. The man is wearing a wool tunic that is of a style worn by many Metis trappers in the late 1800s.

Rolf Hicker Photography

If you did an inventory of what you ate or the products you used during a day, could you identify the chemical compounds used? How would these compounds be different from the substances used by people living at earlier times in Alberta’s history? In this module you will learn to identify how chemical technologies provide for improved products and how bonding relationships in matter determine the properties of chemical substances and the function of technologies that use them.