This study investigates how students account for a macroscopic temperature change during the dissolution of ionic salts through particulate level explanations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with general chemistry, physical chemistry, and biophysical chemistry students. During the interviews, students conducted hands-on tasks that…

Multifunctional chemical analysis (MCA) systems provide a viable alternative for large scale instruction while supporting a hands-on approach to more advanced instrumentation. These systems are robust and typically use student stations connected to a remote central computer for data collection, minimizing the need for computers at every student…

Although stereochemistry is an important topic in second-year undergraduate organic chemistry, there are limited options for laboratory activities that allow direct visualization of macroscopic chiral phenomena. A novel, guided-inquiry experiment was developed that allows students to explore chirality in the context of cholesteric liquid crystals.…

A variety of fruits and vegetables, including raspberries, blueberries, Concord grapes, blackberries, strawberries, peaches, eggplant, red cabbage, and red onions, contain flavonoid compounds known as anthocyanins that are responsible for the blue-red color and the astringent taste associated with such foods. In addition, anthocyanins exhibit a…

Meaningful learning requires the integration of cognitive and affective learning with the psychomotor, i.e., hands-on learning. The undergraduate chemistry laboratory is an ideal place for meaningful learning to occur. However, accurately characterizing students' affective experiences in the chemistry laboratory can be a very difficult task. While…

Understanding how students learn in the undergraduate chemistry teaching laboratory is an essential component to developing evidence-based laboratory curricula. The Meaningful Learning in the Laboratory Instrument (MLLI) was developed to measure students' cognitive and affective expectations and experiences for learning in the chemistry…

The high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) experiment, most often done in the undergraduate analytical instrumentation laboratory course, generally illustrates reversed-phase chromatography using a commercial C[subscript]18 silica column. To avoid the expense of periodic column replacement and introduce a choice of columns with different…

An inquiry-based experiment on Sherlock Holmes adventure stories used to actively involve students in a series of laboratory experiments to prove the guilt of the accused murderer is presented. The result from such experiments showed that students were able to distinguish between sugar and possible poison.

A pre-service science and mathematics teacher participated in an action research project to reform a chemistry course required of elementary and middle childhood pre-service teachers. Activities to emphasize a hands-on approach to learning chemistry and to model teaching science through inquiry for these pre-service teachers are described. The…