Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a very powerful analytical method that has found many applications in physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. It is an indispensable tool particularly for synthetic chemists because it can be used for a rapid elucidation of the structures of organic compounds. For this reason, NMR spectral…

This study examined the effects of using a combination two novel technologies on the development of knowledge and understanding of ecological science concepts for a small of preservice primary teachers, who had self-identified as having low prior background knowledge in science concepts and low confidence in their abilities in teaching science.…

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…

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of computer-based analogy (CBA) used in science teaching in terms of the unit of Structure and Properties of Matter on seventh-grade students' academic success. The attitudes of students against science teaching lesson were also described in this study. This study was applied to 60 seventh-grade…

To enhance teaching and learning about Earth's climate and global climate change (GCC) in secondary science classrooms, the authors are engaged in a four-year, National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project to develop, implement, and evaluate a new four-week curriculum module grounded in the use of a data-driven, computer-based climate modeling…

Diluting a system with metal complexes can sometimes cause free metal ions to increase in concentration. This paper describes "metal ion anti-buffering", a situation in which free metal ion concentrations rapidly increase as system dilution drives dissociation. It only occurs under excess free ligand conditions when a solution is…

The "Yet Another extended Hu¨ckel Molecular Orbital Package" (YAeHMOP) has been merged with the Avogadro open-source molecular editor and visualizer. It is now possible to perform YAeHMOP calculations directly from the Avogadro graphical user interface for materials that are periodic in one, two, or three dimensions, and to visualize…

A bioinformatics laboratory experiment was designed to help undergraduate students learn RNA structure and function in biochemistry courses. In this laboratory experiment, students used 5S rRNAs as material to predict secondary structure and visualize three-dimensional (3D) structure. Students first downloaded molecular information from the 5S…

"Complexation TOPOS" is a free software package to generate 3-D topographic surfaces ("topos") for metal-ligand complexometric titrations in aqueous media. It constructs surfaces by plotting computed equilibrium parameters above a composition grid with "volume of ligand added" as the x-axis and overall system dilution…

Research has indicated the importance of representational competence for learning science. Issues related to the nature of students' representational competence, such as how they demonstrate representational competence across different domains of science, require investigation. In the present study, four aspects of representational competence…

In this technology report, a tool is provided for teaching reciprocal space to undergraduates in physical chemistry and materials science courses. Reciprocal space plays a vital role in understanding a material's electronic structure and physical properties. Here, we provide an example based on previous work in the "Journal of Chemical…

Box-and-whisker plots or simply boxplots are powerful graphical representations that give an overview of a data set. In this work five different examples illustrate the applications of boxplots in food chemistry. The examples involve relative sweetness of sugars and sugar alcohols with respect to sucrose, the potassium content of fruits and…

A series of computer-based laboratory experiments have been developed to aid undergraduate students in appreciating the three-dimensional nature of chemistry and biochemistry. Both lower- and upper-division experiments have been developed. Students are introduced to the use of ChemDraw for the production of professional-quality molecular…

Numerous computational and spectroscopic studies have demonstrated the decisive role played by nonadiabatic coupling in photochemical reactions. Nonadiabatic coupling drives photochemistry when potential energy surfaces are nearly degenerate at avoided crossings or truly degenerate at unavoided crossings. The dynamics induced by nonadiabatic…

The electrophilic addition of a hydrohalic acid (HX) to an alkene is often one of the first reactions learned in second-year undergraduate organic chemistry classes. During the ensuing discussion of the mechanism, it is shown that this reaction follows Markovnikov's rule, which states that the hydrogen atom will attach to the carbon with fewer…