Our mission
To ensure every high school student in the United States, regardless of zip code, has access to chemistry education.
The story
Chemdu — short for Chemistry Education — was founded by a group of educators and former students who were shocked to learn how unequally chemistry is offered across U.S. high schools. In some districts, every student has a chemistry teacher. In others, none do.
We believe chemistry is not a luxury. It's how you stay safe in your home, read a medication label, understand a news story, and walk into a college science class without feeling lost. So we built a way to deliver it directly — over a webcam, by people who love teaching it.
We're a small team of volunteers running a free service. Every dollar we save on overhead is a dollar that can go to a student who otherwise wouldn't get this education.
The data behind us
- 42% of high-minority high schools do not offer chemistry.
- 59% of high-minority high schools do not offer physics.
- 1 in 4 U.S. high schools don't offer Algebra II — a chemistry prerequisite.
- Rural schools are disproportionately likely to lack any science teacher in chemistry, physics, or calculus.
- 50%+ of Black and Latino students attend high schools that offer no calculus.
Sources: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Monitoring Educational Equity (2019); U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, Civil Rights Data Collection.
The science access gap by school demographics
Students at high-minority high schools are roughly half as likely to have access to chemistry, physics, or calculus.
Sources: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine — Monitoring Educational Equity (2019); U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, Civil Rights Data Collection (most recent reporting cycle). "High-minority" schools are those with ≥75% non-white enrollment per OCR definition.
Why we focus on volunteers, not paid staff
Three reasons: speed, scale, and sustainability.
Speed
Hiring a chemistry teacher takes months and a budget no rural district has. Matching a volunteer takes two weeks, costs nothing, and works around the volunteer's existing schedule.
Scale
There are roughly 25,000 U.S. high schools and only so many chemistry teachers. But there are tens of thousands of qualified chemists — professors, postdocs, grad students — who would happily teach an hour a week.
Sustainability
A free volunteer service doesn't need ongoing funding to survive. We rely on volunteer time and minimal infrastructure costs — making us resilient to grant cycles and political shifts.
Our curriculum
Two complete levels, designed to prioritize life-saving chemistry knowledge — not test scores.
Level 1 — Life Safety Chemistry
11 lectures (~8.5 hours) covering atomic structure, periodic table, bonding, reactions, stoichiometry (math-light), solutions, acids & bases, thermodynamics, kinetics, gas laws, and nuclear chemistry.
Focus: household examples, no grades, knowledge students can use in daily life.
See the lectures →Level 2 — Advanced Chemistry
13 lectures (~17 hours) going deeper into atomic structure, periodic trends, bonding (Lewis structures, VSEPR), reactions, stoichiometry, solutions, acids & bases, thermodynamics, kinetics & equilibrium, gas laws, nuclear chemistry, spectroscopy, and organic chemistry.
For students ready for college-prep depth, including basic calculations.
See the lectures →Founders & team
Chemdu is run by a small volunteer team. We're growing.
Founder
Bio coming soon.
Curriculum lead
Bio coming soon.
Volunteer coordinator
Bio coming soon.
Partners
We're building partnerships with universities, school districts, and education nonprofits. If your organization wants to collaborate, reach out.
University of Denver
Launch partner
Chemdu is launching at the University of Denver, where our founding team is based. DU faculty and graduate students are among our first volunteer educators, and DU's chemistry department supports the curriculum design.
Become a partner
Universities, school districts, and education nonprofits — we'd love to talk.
Sponsors and donors can support a specific high school directly — see our sponsorship page for how it works.
Contact
General inquiries: info@chemdu.org
Press: press@chemdu.org · Partnerships: partners@chemdu.org
We're a volunteer-run nonprofit; expect a response within a few business days.