Recently there is an increasing need for experiments that can be conducted remotely. In this sense, this paper presents three experiments about materials science and an X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique that can be taught and performed entirely remotely. The first experiment is about the calculation of lattice parameters, atomic radii, and…

The Periodic Table of the Elements (PTE) is arguably one of the most central topics in chemistry. This article provides a critical review of current teaching practices of the PTE to high-school students and undergraduate university students. It also provides a new teaching model, the "periodic universe", for understanding of the PTE…

As part of the ACS Examinations Institute (ACS-EI) national norming process, student performance data sets are collected from professors at colleges and universities from around the United States. Because the data sets are collected on a volunteer basis, the ACS-EI often receives data sets with only students' total scores and without the students'…

The design and use of an instrument simulator is described. Used for student laboratory experiments illustrating the use of mini-computers, it can provide, at very low cost, a repetitive, repeatable output to duplicate the readout of various instruments such as electrochemical experiments, mass spectrometers, pulsed magnetic experiments,…

Techniques for digitalizing analog signal data are presented and compared. The techniques presented are: boxcar averaging, ensemble averaging, unweighted digital filter, weighted digital filter, and analog filter. (BB)