This paper outlines the design of an interactive simulation of Stokes' law, which is used frequently in the study of particle sedimentation and flotation. The software application includes dynamic visualizations and statistical outputs. Descriptions of how the simulation can be used in a teaching context are provided. The application and its…

The purpose of this paper is to share the iterative process we used to design a task that elicits causal mechanistic reasoning and how the subsequent student responses can be analyzed. Our goal in this task is to strike a balance between eliciting as much student knowledge as possible without providing so much structure that the answer becomes…

Common over-the-counter medicines can be an exciting entry point for introducing students to the interesting chemistries that they encounter in their daily lives. In this inquiry-based activity, students are tasked with using a list of given supplies and information about four medications (Aspirin, Tums, Pepto-Bismol, and Tylenol) to design three…

Fiber materials and textiles are topics of much research and study today, with efforts being made to produce fibers that are stronger, more durable, more breathable, and better for the environment. However, the production of fibers at the laboratory scale is uncommon and difficult past the prototype phase, and to a commercial fiber production…

There is a gap between the importance of certain archeological material sources and their perception, both by professionals and by the general public. Textiles, for example, are essential to understanding practices that marked daily life and rituals in the past, but they have often been extremely degraded over time, particularly in temperate…

An increased reliance on nanotechnology and recent developments in materials fabrication coincide with a greater prevalence of 3D printers in high schools. We developed this lesson to foster an exploration of interdisciplinary fields and to increase access to recent advances in materials chemistry through two different learning modules. The lab…

The commonly accepted goal of doctoral education is to train students to be independent researchers and scientists. The backward design framework was used to model how graduate handbooks should be developed; by setting measurable outcomes and working backward to design programmatic elements that will meet those desired goals. Under the backward…

Lab-on-a-chip devices are a critical and emerging chemical technology. New pedagogical tactics that effectively capture both analytical chemistry concepts along with the design elements unique to these devices are necessary for effective integration in the undergraduate chemistry curriculum. This article develops a design-based learning laboratory…

A simple inquiry-based activity called "Fruit Puzzle" was designed to investigate high school students' understanding of the relationship between the concepts of density and solution concentration at a submicroscopic level. The first activity allowed students to predict whether five types of fruit would sink or float in water and asked…

Sustainability transitions need professionals with specific skills and attitudes that students often do not develop in their regular chemistry education. To foster sustainability change-maker competencies, we suggest augmenting higher education curricula, e.g., chemical degree programs, with transdisciplinary challenge-based learning combined with…

This paper describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of an inquiry-based laboratory for sophomore-level organic chemistry into a mostly cookbook, existing laboratory curriculum. For the laboratory, students were required to generate their own procedures and use their own recorded data from prior laboratory assignments to identify an…

In undergraduate chemistry curricula that include computational modeling, students may gain first-hand experience in both introductory and advanced applications of this technique. However, although students can be exposed to the predictive power of computational work, its capabilities are often limited to determining the intrinsic properties of…

Lower division chemistry and chemical engineering courses commonly emphasize efficient acquisition of core content. While experts perceive the organization of the discipline, students perceive their courses as fragmented. This has a more severe impact on students from groups historically excluded from STEM fields, who may not have a deep…

Teaching chemistry as a practice rather than as a mere collection of facts demands that teachers modify their practices, particularly their approach to formative assessment (FA). In this study, we investigated how teachers' FA practices changed as a result of their participation in a professional development program designed with a Chemical…

In an idealized General Chemistry Laboratory curriculum, students would hone their experimental design ability with practice encouraged by laboratory exercises designed to be open-ended. However, traditional General Chemistry Laboratory courses often lack opportunities for students to design their own experiments, instead opting to provide…