Apologia Chemistry Options

Updated July 11, 2016
Hello everyone,
I thought I would introduce and talk about the different things I have learned about Apologia's chemistry products.

1. Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics:

This book is part of Apologia's Young Explorer Series, which also includes the textbooks Flying Creatures (Zoology 1, pub. 2005), Swimming Creatures (Zoology 2, pub. 2006), Land Animals (Zoology 3, pub. 2008), Human Anatomy & Physiology (pub. 2010), Astronomy (pub. 2004), and Botany (pub. 2004). 

The entire series is meant for grades 1-6, so do not use Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics by Jeannie Fulbright (pub. 2013) as a high school Chemistry or Physics course. It will be too easy for homeschooled highschoolers. 

2. Exploring Creation with Chemistry, 2nd edition:

This book was written by Dr. Jay L. Wile in his excellent "talking-to-you" style. Called Exploring Creation with Chemistry 2nd edition, and published in 2003, this was what most homeschooled high schoolers were using for their chemistry credit up until now. 

While researching to see the cheapest price for the book (I am doing biology this year and chemistry the following year), we noticed that on Rainbow Resource's website, it is out of print. And, the textbook is no longer even sold on Christian Book Distributors. 

The reason is explained by David Carman from Apologia on an excerpt from this post: "In the meantime, some families have asked if we will continue to make the older second edition of Exploring Creation with Chemistry available for purchase. The answer is no, we will not be printing any more copies of the second edition, and for good reason: The second edition is now twelve years old. New discoveries and understandings of the world around us require that science textbooks undergo periodic updates to make appropriate revisions" [Although Dr. Wile states on the first page here that "There aren’t any new chemistry topics in the new edition, and the science behind the topics covered has not changed since the previous edition. The new edition does teach Lewis structures differently from the first edition, but that leads to confusion, because the method used is not consistent. Sometimes, the method taught in this new edition is used to make Lewis structures, but sometimes the method taught in the previous edition is used, with no explanation and no indication that it is a different method."] "Much has happened in twelve years, and Apologia is committed to providing the highest-quality, up-to-date science curriculum for your family."

The revision of Chemistry, and made a third edition (which will be explained more below).

Anyway, Exploring Creation with Chemistry, 2nd ed. can no longer be purchased.

3. Exploring Creation with Chemistry, 3rd edition:

This book is the "revised" (re-written) 3rd edition, which they now call Exploring Creation with Chemistry, 3rd edition, by Kristy Plourde and Rusty Hughes, published 2014. Many homeschoolers tried this book, but were unsatisfied, because it is hard to read and teach.

The authors hurried to finish it, thus leaving it with factual, mathematical, spelling, and usage errors. To see the 101 page errata (error) sheet, click here. 

Dr. Jay L. Wile's review of the 3rd edition can be found by clicking here. 

4. Discovering Design with Chemistry

Discovering Design with Chemistry, by Dr. Wile, is a new textbook currently in the works, which will be available for purchase (along with the answer key & test book and the kit for doing experiments) on August 17, 2015 from Berean Builders. 

UPDATE (August 10, 2015): You can now purchase the textbook & answer key/test book here and the kit containing all non-househould items needed for completing the course's 46 experiments here.

When explaining why he is writing a new highschool chemistry course with an unforgiving deadline on his blog, Dr. Wile states, "Well, the publisher of my old chemistry course [the 2nd edition] just released a new edition [the 3rd edition], and in my opinion, it is no longer a good source from which to learn chemistry. I wrote a detailed review of the many problems with the course, in case you want to know more. Because the publisher will no longer sell the old edition, I think there is now a serious need for an academically-sound, college-preparatory high school chemistry course designed for the home school, and I think it needs to be available for the coming academic year."

Personally, I'm choosing to do Discovering Design with Chemistry.