Understanding social interactions among students comprises a rich area of physics education research. Here we focus on the social interactions in introductory physics laboratories (labs). Most existing research in such contexts focuses on within-group social dynamics, however, we argue that interactions between different lab groups are just as…

There currently exists a significant deficiency in the nuclear chemistry workforce within the United States, despite its importance in areas of medicine, national security, and energy. Poor coverage of this topic across many chemistry departments at the undergraduate level likely contributes to this shortage. Increasing interest and hands-on…

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPRs) represent a novel type of adaptive immune system found in eubacteria and archaebacteria. CRISPRs have recently generated a lot of attention due to their unique ability to catalog foreign nucleic acids, their ability to destroy foreign nucleic acids in a mechanism that shares some…

Food spoilage has an enormous economic impact, and microbial food spoilage plays a significant role in food waste and loss; subsequently, an equally significant portion of undergraduate food microbiology instruction should be dedicated to spoilage microbiology. Here, we describe a set of undergraduate microbiology laboratory exercises that focus…

Carbon nanomaterials have promising utility in chemical sensing including applications in preserving occupational safety, monitoring of environmental pollution, and human health. While recent advances in device fabrication and molecular design of functional materials have enabled rapid fabrication of chemical sensors from carbon nanomaterials,…

Laboratory research experiences are highly impactful learning environments for undergraduate students. However, a surprising number of chemistry students do not research. These students often do not research because they lack the time, interest, opportunity, or awareness. Course-based undergraduate research experiences can reach out to these…

We describe the content and organization of a series of day-long field trips to a university for high school students that connect chemistry content to issues of sustainability. The seven laboratory activities are in the areas of environmental degradation, energy production, and green chemistry. The laboratory procedures have been modified from…

The purpose of this study was to investigate (a) what effect the use of interactive computer-based simulations (ICBSs), the use of laboratory inquiry-based experiments (LIBEs), and the use of combinations of an ICBS and a LIBE, in a conceptually oriented physics course, have on science teachers' beliefs about and attitudes toward the use of these…