The COVID-19 pandemic and its related restrictions forced the reorganization of learning methodology and gave a central role to remote learning. Laboratory experiments are the most affected activity, and several alternatives were described. This work proposes to create calculation tools by simply programming in Visual Basic of Excel to emulate the…

In this paper, the development of an automatic assessor is presented, both in MATLAB and in Excel, for an analytical exercise. In particular, the emulation of an interlaboratory exercise, using the analytical determination of phosphorus in a dry detergent, carried out in the laboratory by different groups of students, was selected as a case of…

We report a molecular modeling study for undergraduate students aimed at carrying out an analysis of small molecules using a systematic conformational search with VEGA ZZ, a freely available software program. Conformational analyses were performed using a systematic search based on variations of torsion angles. First, the conformations of n-butane…

FINDIF is a Windows application that numerically solves the one-dimensional (1D) Schrödinger equation and displays the eigenstates, eigenvalues, and probability density of the system. FINDIF accepts both nonperiodic and periodic 1D potential energy functions as input and uses the finite difference method to evaluate the energy of the quantum…

The recent popularity of benchtop (BT) NMR systems has prompted its applications in undergraduate laboratories around the world. Owing to their low maintenance cost, due to the lack of a superconducting magnetic core, and simple operation, these BT NMR systems can fulfill many of the learning objectives outlined in the undergraduate organic…

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…

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…

Computer vision (CV) is a subfield of artificial intelligence (AI) that trains computers to understand our visual world based on digital images. There are many successful applications of CV including face and hand gesture detection, weather recording, smart farming, and self-driving cars. Recent advances in computer vision with machine learning…

A bachelor's degree program in chemistry typically starts with basic concepts in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Those principles are very important because they pave the ground for future advanced studies and, therefore, one needs to present them in a clear but rigorous way. One example is provided by the mathematical notion of an iterative…

This article contrasts the normal method for drawing Lewis structures with a two-step systematic approach. The latter approach uses a known molecular connectivity and a knowledge of the number of valence electrons that each atom possesses to visualize bonds that are formed by pairing electrons, one from each atom. This process is repeated until at…

The Boltzmann distribution lies at the heart of essentially all of statistical thermodynamics. In most textbooks, this distribution is introduced either "ad hoc" or it is mathematically derived by constrained entropy optimization using the method of Lagrange multipliers. Unfortunately, when students enroll in a statistical thermodynamics…

At an advanced stage of learning quantum chemistry, undergraduate students usually encounter simple Hückel-molecular-orbital (HMO) theory, whose primitive approach gives very useful insight into the electronic structure of p-conjugated molecules. However, on one hand, computational HMO software, when programmed without using molecular symmetry,…

Facile visualization of biomolecules is an essential component of the undergraduate biochemistry curriculum. In the past, a number of tools have been used to display biomolecules. More recently, the advent of greater accessibility to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) programs has created a new mechanism to visualize biomolecules.…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted chemistry teaching practices globally as many courses were forced online, necessitating adaptation to the digital platform. The biggest impact was to the practical component of the chemistry curriculum--the so-called wet lab. Naively, it would be thought that computer-based teaching laboratories would have little…

Teaching and understanding the concepts related to ideal gases and their transformations is relatively uncomplicated. However, for science and engineering students, reaching an understanding of and assimilating the concepts related to real gases and their transformations is a more difficult goal. Backed by their considerable experience teaching…