The aim of this course is to enable pre-service teachers to understand the fundamental concepts, principles, and models of chemistry within the context of the historical development of the atom, the periodic table, chemical bonding, intermolecular interactions, gases, chemical reactions, and solutions. The course aims to support students in explaining chemical phenomena not only through symbolic equations and calculations, but also by establishing relationships among macroscopic observations, microscopic particle models, and symbolic representations. Within the scope of the course, pre-service teachers are expected to investigate the measurable properties of matter through experiments, collect data, construct tables, draw and interpret graphs, evaluate errors and uncertainties, develop models based on experimental data, and recognize the role of filtration and selection processes in scientific knowledge production where appropriate. The course initially proceeds through guided inquiry and later through open inquiry. In this way, it aims to develop not only students’ chemistry content knowledge, but also their scientific process skills, evidence-based reasoning, modelling, experimental design, and ability to justify conclusions. Simulations are used to support the teaching of abstract concepts at the atomic and particle levels. Through simulations, students are encouraged to model unobservable processes and explain them using multiple forms of representation. In this respect, the course aims to develop both pre-service teachers’ fundamental chemistry knowledge and their understanding of inquiry-based teaching practices that they may use in their future classrooms.

The structural and physical properties of matter, i.e., electronic structure of atoms, chemical binding, molecular geometry, hybridization and molecular orbitals and the states of matter, i.e., gases, liquids and solids.