It's been awhile since I've done this. In fact, I think the last one was when HC USA was still at its old host/blog. So, I thought it was about time for another round of, "Textbooks that won't break the bank!" fun. This time, let's try chemistry.

From Amazon:
Whoa. Before I really get started, I just found a chemistry textbook that is selling new for $214.64, and that's discounted from the list price of $299.95. It's got some fairly good (thought not universally so) reviews, but still. Three hundred dollars for one book? Yowsa!

Well, for those who do like the addition of a not-only-online textbook to round out their studies but don't want to spend quite that much on a single book, here are some more reasonably priced suggestions.

Chemistry: An Introduction to General, Organic, & Biological Chemistry (10th Edition) - starting used at $12.98.

Chemistry, 10th Edition - starting used at $9.00.

Chemistry: The Molecular Nature of Matter and Change - starting used at $8.69.

Foundations of College Chemistry - starting used at $6.99.

World of Chemistry: Essentials - starting used at $0.01

And this isn't a textbook, but I personally recommend it to anyone struggling with chemistry concepts:  Homework Helpers: Chemistry - starting used at $11.00. Or, you could purchase the previous edition here, starting used at just 1 cent. I actually have the first edition and found it to be an excellent resource for basic chemistry concepts.

I'm going to take a guess and say, as far as sciences go, chemistry isn't one of the more popular choices at the college level. I can usually find plenty of textbooks for a specific subject that are priced used for a few dollars or less. That obviously wasn't the case here. Please note that the above books are not listed in any particular order, and it's simple coincidence that they are priced in descending order. Also, I do not personally own all of them (only the World of Chemistry book and the Homework Helpers one), so I can't recommend them in particular. Use your own discretion if you decide to purchase anything. From what I saw, Foundations of College Chemistry had the most favorable reviews, aside from the well-deserved accolades for the Homework Helpers book.
 
I don't normally link to anything that's referring to my own site, but I really do like what Jamie at the Time 4 Learning online Homeschool Blog describes as her method of bringing things together to create a study plan for her children. It's worth a look!
 
I was able to find the student editions of the newer PASS books on the Wayback Machine, so I have updated the links on the individual pages. (We'll see how long that lasts!) However, these links do not include the teacher editions. I highly recommend you use the information below to order the free CDs. You'll get the TEs this way. There is no guarantee how long they will be available, so do it soon. It may be that you never even use them, but they're nice to have, just in case, and you can always give the CDs away later, if you want.

Meanwhile, the World Geography PASS book apparently never made it through the revision stage. This means it is not available on the CDs, or at Wayback, like it was on the ERIC site. I have just spent over two hours trying to find a good, legal, free alternative, without success. There is a free geography book at Flatworld Knowledge, but when you click on the online free edition, all the photos are missing.

If you know of a free geography book, please let me know! I will keep searching myself and hopefully find something soon.
 
I have been in contact with the FLDOE representative in charge of the PASS textbooks.  They have gone back to offering the complete set of student editions and teacher editions on CD-ROM.  You may request your free copy by sending your full name and mailing address to:  [email protected].  You do NOT have to be a Florida resident.  (I did confirm this.)  I will get the individual webpages that list PASS textbooks updated as soon as I can.
 
It has been brought to my attention that the PASS textbooks are currently unavailable again at both website locations.  It looks like the previous editions have been removed from the ERIC.gov website.  I have contacted the person in charge of the site with the updated editions to ask if/when they will be back.
 
LOL!  I can't remember my login information for Facebook.  I'm going to have to see if I can figure it out.

ETA>  Nope.  *snort*  I have no idea what email I used to create the HC USA Facebook page.  And I apparently don't know my user name either.  Right.  Perhaps now would be a good time to mention I really don't even like Facebook and so I've probably subconsciously sabotaged myself on this one.

So.. still, thanks to all of you who have "liked" the site.  More people are discovering HC USA through Facebook and I appreciate the effort to get the word out.

If you've just stumbled across my site, let me state again, for the record, yes, everything is free.  And no, none of the links here are affiliate links.  I don't actually have a problem with affiliate links in general, but in this case, I wanted you to be sure that if I've linked to something, it's because I found it worth your time to at least investigate for yourself, without wondering if I'm only pointing you in a certain direction for my own benefit.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you find HC USA helpful in reaching your goals.
 
Just a reminder that back to school sales are happening now.  (I know!  Already?  How does summer go by so fast?)

Now is the time to stock up on notebook paper, dividers, and binders for your study journals.  And pens!  You're going to need plenty of pens.
 
Just a quick note:  CK-12 has revamped their website.  I am going through the links now to find those that need to be updated.  If you are looking for a specific textbook and I haven't fixed the link yet, you can find what you need from their main page.

Also, the UPDATED PASS TEXTBOOKS are available again.  If you even think you might use them, you should consider downloading and saving copies while you can.

 
For anyone not familiar with the meaning behind my post title, my husband is a former Marine.  He says this all the time.  Something to do with ducking and running in enemy territory.

Anyway, in my case, just wanted to take a moment and stop in on my own site.  Been awhile since I said anything here, eh?  Life has been just as crazy as ever, but in a few weeks my kids head off to camp and I will be doing another round of, "Hey, let's spend 7 hours checking all the links on the website to make sure they're active and going where they're supposed to!"

A friend quite innocently asked, "Can't you just use one of those link-checking sites that scan your site for broken links?"  Well, yes... I could do that.  Problem is, it will only let me know about broken links.  More often than not, what I get isn't a broken link, it's a moved link within a site that still exists, or it's now something like a generic page full off ads.  And so I have to check everything manually.  It's rather tiresome, but it needs to be done on a regular basis.

In other news:  If you've been thinking about using the DESTINOS program for Spanish, and considering purchasing the textbook that goes with it, I now have a copy of both the first and second editions.  (Long story.  Not gonna waste your time with it.)  I compared the two and IMHO, no, the second edition is not so wonderfully different that it's worth the extra expense.  Get the first.  I saw today on Amazon that it's SELLING USED for as little as $0.44  Also, nifty extra, you can get the audio files that go with the textbook free HERE.  Just FYI, though, the audio files contain the clips for both the textbook listening portion and the workbooks listening portion in each lesson, with the textbook portion coming first.  The good news is, if you want the workbooks, you can find those pretty cheap as well.  (Again, I am talking about the OLDER EDITIONS.  The second edition workbooks even used are generally over $20, but if you want to use the free audio files, you want the older workbooks anyway.)

And don't forget SPANISH HOUR.  From their main page:  "If you have a Facebook account, our 50 day Spanish for beginners course is free. What are you waiting for? In just 20 days you will be able to express yourself in the present tense. In 33 days, just over a month, you will be at an intermediate level and able to converse in Spanish in past, present and future tense. And in 50 days you will have learned 2 years' worth of college level Spanish."
 
So, at some point, while altering this basic Weebly template, I did something that made the text for the comments boxes disappear.  (I suppose the text is in white and against my white background, you can't see it.  You could right-click and drag across it to view it, if you wanted.)

Problem is, I can't seem to fix it only on the blog.  If I change the CSS, it's a universal change - one I don't really want to make.  At some point I'll probably hit on some totally brilliant solution.

Meanwhile, if you want to leave a comment (and that doesn't much happen here so I'm not too worried about all this), the first box is for your name and it's required.  Well, a name is required.  Get creative!  You could be Melba Toast, or Bill Board, or Candy Cane.  The second box is for your email, which is "not published."  You could come up with some zinger there, too.  The third box asks for your website.  You're welcome to put something there or leave it blank.  And the last box is obviously for your comment.  You can really go to town there.  Just note if it's spam, I'll delete it.

(The little check box before you submit is for allowing you to agree to getting email updates to the comments, if you want.)