Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture (DIY Science)

This is an excellent book. The author is very knowledgeable, and the book is well written. It is a must for anyone who is interested in amateur chemistry.

At first I picked this book to help with home-schooling, but it's a bit over my son's (and my) head. It also does not explain the theories as well as a plain school textbook. That said, this book is AWESOME! Every page made me want to go buy more chemisty stuff and try things. The experiments cover safety and post experiment waste disposal; things parents are concerned about.

Whether or not my son chooses to join me in "the lab", I can see several months of fascination and pure joy of learning ahead.

My husband bought this Make magazine Home Chemistry publication because we were familiar with Make and is hands-down more thorough than any other publication that we researched. My old chemistry books were too involved and used as reference books for me. The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments shows you the best ways to obtain basic lab equipment and chemicals necessary for the experiments and which ones can be obtained from local hardware stores. It's great way to make learning fun with all the necessary precautions but yet not so frustrating with the academic and technical jargon. It recommends a schedule of experiments for a typical high school program to experiments tackling more advanced chemistry curriculum. It covers simple experiments as separating and recovering sugar from sand as well as the concepts/types of latent fingerprinting recovery. I highly recommend checking it out if you home school or just want to study or relearn basic or advanced chemical properites in an applicable and understandable manner.

I have been involved in chemistry in one way or another for the biggest part of my life, and being a gold refiner by trade, I must say that I have never seen a text as simple to read and understand as this, for the lay person trying to get a start in the chemistry world... To the point, readable and understandable... A five year old could handle this book! With my prior knowledge, I was still riveted to this book... Excellent job! Bill Lewelling, Goldco Mining and Refining, Lakewood, Colorado

This book is an amazing value. I would pay 50 bucks for this book. Much of the book is full of very useful information about lab equipment and the chemicals you will need--where to find the chemicals, and the specific safety risks of each chemical. The experiments are simply in design, but lengthy enough to be significant learning experiences. Data tables and questions about the lab are included. I'm sure this will turn out to be a very valuable resource for my teaching of secondary science.