A cornerstone activity in undergraduate organic laboratories revolves around students running instrumental analysis on their products and interpreting their spectra. They are left to link the theory they have learned in lecture to practical spectral interpretation. Students often memorize benchmark interpretations of peaks, such as the broad…

We present a new highly interdisciplinary project-based course in computer aided drug discovery (CADD). This course was developed in response to a call for alternative pedagogical approaches during the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the cancellation of a face-to-face summer research program sponsored by the Louisiana Biomedical Research Network…

Basic science courses, such as physics, are fundamental to precollege studies. For instance, in different engineering applications, electricity and magnetism require comprehending subjects such as electrical circuits and power electronics. However, abstract concepts such as electric or magnetic fields are often difficult to explain without visual…

The understanding of the basic principles of chromatography is of high importance for chemistry, pharmacy, and biology students. In this paper, we present a free web application which can be used as a teaching tool to introduce chromatography to undergraduate students, using one of the simplest chromatography models: the plate theory.

CRISPR-Cas9 is revolutionizing how we conduct scientific research, treat disease, and develop new crops. The widespread impact of this genome-editing technology makes it critical for undergraduate students to understand and engage with this new tool. In this article, we describe a multi-week lab module that teaches undergraduates how to design…

Using a joystick module, we followed the movement of a chaotic magnetic pendulum. The pendulum bar was attached to a joystick that served as a pivot point and biaxial angular motion sensor. Using an Arduino board, we could follow the position as a function of time along both the "x" and "y"-axis and draw a graph showing the…

Molecular symmetry plays an important role in many areas of chemistry, and students are generally taught to identify intramolecular symmetries at the undergraduate level. Intermolecular symmetry, the symmetry among groups of molecules, is of great importance in topics such as X-ray crystallography, but it receives substantially less attention.…

Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and computational chemistry are used in concert to evaluate the thermal decomposition of calcium acetate monohydrate, Ca(C[subscript 2]H[subscript 3]O[subscript 2])[subscript 2]·H[subscript 2]O, and to engage students in high-level thinking as they synthesize results…

General safety and chemical training of undergraduate students is typically held at the first-year level. In this technology report, we propose a flexible strategy to improve students' general knowledge of safety for a second-year inorganic chemistry laboratory. The strategy is composed of an online interactive revision approach through the…

Scientific computing and computer literacy are increasingly important skills for chemistry students to learn, but despite this need, there is an absence of chemistry-specific texts available for teaching the subject. This article introduces a freely available textbook released under a Creative Commons license for use in an undergraduate scientific…

The use of symmetry is widespread in chemistry, as it is used for predictions of the number of allowed and forbidden absorptions in electronic, vibrational, and rotational spectroscopies; for predictions of the combination of atomic orbitals to produce molecular orbitals; and in many other chemical applications. One critical step in these…

A virtual reality (VR) session was introduced to an advanced inorganic chemistry class, a class available to junior and senior undergraduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles. The VR session helped the students to learn complicated aspects of metal coordination chemistry and molecular orbitals via an immersive three-dimensional…

An active-learning concurrent preparatory general chemistry course was adopted to replace a prerequisite course that lacked effectiveness in improving student outcomes. Our previous study showed that the concurrent course increased final exam performance and retention in a cohort of students. This paper studies the course modality impact of the…

The NASA public archives present a vast resource of authentic satellite data that research astronomers have tapped into for decades. Recently, the same data analysis tools used by professional astronomers have been adapted into a browser-based interface called JS9 for easy use by any interested student. Tutorials and classroom-ready activities…

Knowing the volume of evolved gases is helpful to select an optimal leavening agent for a particular application. The comparison of leavening agents, their reactions through the baking process in the modern and attractive way, is presented here. A gas pressure sensor probe was used to monitor the pressure change due to the carbon dioxide produced…