Quantitative problem-solving is a challenging aspect of any physical science course. Traditionally, students have been encouraged to pursue various techniques in an effort to provide structure to this task. While such methods may help students to generate numerical answers, they can become exercises in symbol manipulation that leave the student without a clear picture of the physical situation associated with the problem. This paper describes the efforts of a group of teachers to help college freshman chemistry students and high school science students to improve their problem-solving skills. The presentation includes several sets of questions intended to elucidate ideas and to involve the reader in the process of reflecting upon his or her own problem-solving strategies.

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This paper summarizes difficulties that chemistry students at all levels commonly exhibit when translating, manipulating, and interpreting mathematical expressions that contain logarithms, and offers approaches that the authors have found useful to help students overcome such difficulties. The online supplement provides problem sets created by the authors, based on student–instructor interactions that have taken place during many classes, help sessions, and laboratories. They range in level of difficulty from those appropriate for high school and first-year college students, to those appropriate for more advanced students.

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