Suppose you have a sister in grade 8. One day she asked you what chemistry is. Write a response to her question. List five practices that you and your classmates follow to make working in your laboratories safer. List five things you could do to make your work in the laboratory safer than it is now.
Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones.
But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. If chemistry is just a matter of remembering a bunch of facts about matter and its structure, and memorizing how to do problems about matter and its changes, then it is like a heap of stones or a pile of brick or a stack of lumber. A house has a structure that is produced by ordered relationships among building materials. Chemistry has a stucture that is produced by ordered relationships among concepts. Matter is made of atoms.