Alchemists who worked with chemicals before the 1700s were interested in mixing substances to make gold, though they were never successful. Robert Boyle is considered the father of chemistry as he moved away from alchemy and proposed that all matter is made up of elements that cannot be broken down further. Antoine Lavoisier helped establish the science of chemistry by using experiments and quantitative measurements, discovering the principle of mass conservation that matter changes form but is not lost.

1. Chemistry in the Past
Paragraph #1

2. Chemistry is an old
science. People were always
interested in chemicals.

3. Source of picture:
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/derstrae.html
People who worked
on chemicals before
the 1700’s were
called alchemists.
Their kind of
chemistry was called
alchemy.

4. They had some strange ideas. For
example, they believed they could
make gold by mixing together the
right things. For hundreds of
years, alchemists tried to do this.
Of course, no one ever made gold
this way.

5. What is the main idea in this
paragraph?
a. Alchemists never made gold.
b. Alchemists lived before the 1700’s.
c. Alchemists studied chemicals in
strange ways.

6. What is the main idea in this
paragraph?
a. Alchemists never made gold.
b. Alchemists lived before the 1700’s.
c. Alchemists studied chemicals
in strange ways.

7. Chemistry in the Past
Paragraph #2

8. Source of picture:
http://www.th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/
~jr/gif/phys/boyle.jpg
Robert Boyle (1627-1691) is sometimes called the
“father of chemistry.”He started out as an alchemist, but he
began to think in a different way.

9. For example,
alchemists
thought that
everything
was made out
of four
things—earth,
air, fire and
water,

10. but Boyle
found that
things are
made up of
many
different
elements.

11. In fact, he wrote a definition of
what an element is. He said
that an element is something
that cannot be broken down
into smaller parts. Boyle’s work
marked the end of alchemy as
a science.

12. Boyle’s chemistry
equipment
Source of image:
http://www.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings
/ShapinSchaffer/AirPump.jpeg

13. What is the main idea in this paragraph?
a. Robert Boyle helped build the science of
alchemy.
b. Robert Boyle said everything is made of
four elements.
c. Robert Boyle helped to start the science
of chemistry.

14. What is the main idea in this paragraph?
a. Robert Boyle helped build the science of
alchemy.
b. Robert Boyle said everything is made of
four elements.
c. Robert Boyle helped to start the
science of chemistry.

15. Chemistry in the Past
Paragraph #3

16. Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) is important in the
history of modern chemistry. In about 1776, he
began to use a new way to study chemicals.

17. Before Lavoisier, scientists just
looked at something and thought
about it. However, Lavoisier did
experiments. He studied the size
and weight of many different
things. He found out something
important.

18. He found out that
nothing really goes
away. It just changes
into something else.

19. For example,
when water
boils, it
doesn’t go
away. It
becomes
steam, a cloud
of water. This
was an
important idea
for the future
of chemistry.

20. What is the main idea in this paragraph?
a. Antoine Lavoisier used experiments to
study chemicals.
b. Antoine Lavoisier studied the size and
weight of water.
c. Antoine Lavoisier lived in the 1700’s

21. What is the main idea in this paragraph?
a. Antoine Lavoisier used
experiments to study chemicals.
b. Antoine Lavoisier studied the size and
weight of water.
c. Antoine Lavoisier lived in the 1700’s