Physics & Parsimony: Chemistry with Rising 9th Graders

What surprised me was that almost all of these students knew how to balance chemical equations. Yet they had no idea what any of it meant. They could also tell me that burning alcohol was alcohol reacting with oxygen and the result was water and carbon dioxide (some wanted to add intermediate “fire atoms,” though). While they had been taught to balance a combustion equation and even knew quite a lot about combustion, they nonetheless (to a student) had no idea what was going on.