The typical introduction to environmental chemistry course is not a “majors” course since it does not prepare students to take the physical, organic and inorganic courses which the majors, calculus-based introductory chemistry course does. Water and Sun, is both an introduction to environmental chemistry and a majors introduction to chemistry, which is achieved by using a systems approach rather than the traditional topical approach. In the topical approach one concentrates on one topic at a time … such as thermodynamics, the gas laws, acid/base equilibria, etc. What distinguishes one topical approach from another is the order of the topics and the depth. But both student and faculty know that when a topic is begun the focus will be on it until it is “completed” and then we move on to the next topic. That is the way that I learned and taught college chemistry for more than 50 years.
In Water and Sun topics are introduced only to the extent necessary to understand that aspect of a natural system currently under study. By carefully selecting systems that are simple initially and become progressively more complex, all of the topics typically covered in a calculus-based introductory chemistry course can be covered without calculus as a prerequisite. Specific algebraic and calculus skills can be introduced as needed with the aid of an Algebra appendix and a Calculus appendix. Two systems are used in this book: the flow of water from a glacier to the ocean and the flow of energy from the sun to the earth’s surface. At its birth from the glacier the juvenile river has little chemistry associated with it but as it progresses to its salt water terminus it becomes progressively more complex. Similarly, the energy levels are too high for any chemistry to occur at the sun’s surface. But as its radiation reaches the earth’s upper atmosphere and then the stratosphere and finally the troposphere, the chemistry becomes progressively more complex. And along the way, for both systems, environmental problems can also be addressed.