Lakes are artists' pigments made from colorants bound to an inert substrate, usually hydrated aluminum oxide. Before the late 19th century, lakes were made from natural pigments extracted from plants and insects, extracted either directly from the dyestuff or indirectly from waste materials generated in the manufacture of dyed textiles. The first…

Understanding potentiometry is a difficult task when students in initial courses of Analytical Chemistry are first introduced to instrumental techniques. The closest instrument to them is a pH meter, which is frequently used as a "black box", without a real understanding of how it works. Here we present the assembly of jelly modules that…

Fluorescence-related experimental techniques play an important role in biochemistry, molecular biology, and cell biology. However, fluorescence-related experiments are rarely included in the laboratory courses of most Chinese universities. This is mainly due to the conflict between large class size (50-60 students in one room) and funding/space…

By hosting a college students' laboratory skills contest, we provide an interesting activity for students to cultivate good laboratory practices and thereby improve their laboratory skills. The substance of this contest is the detection of the hardness of water, which involves numerous laboratory skills such as solution preparation, weight by…

Chemists have always designed and deployed cross-disciplinary approaches that interface chemistry with other disciplines to proffer solutions to many human problems. We designed a laboratory experiment that implements chemistry concepts in a biological model to prime undergraduate students to appreciate interdisciplinarity as an approach to…

Affect and emotions matter to science learning. They also matter because they are integral to science identity formation and sense of belonging. This study aims to foreground the epistemic and affective character of laboratory work in higher science education by conceptualizing it as epistemic practice, in which students activate their body and…

Chemometric techniques such as partial least-squares (PLS) regression have been applied with huge success to a wide array of chemical problems including multicomponent analysis of analytes in complex mixtures. Despite this, there are few examples of laboratory pedagogical exercises that involve students in the acquisition of chemical data from…

To optimize learning experience and improve learning performance, current virtual experimental systems usually assist students with stepwise guidance before operations and feedback after them. However, stepwise and excessive guidance can lead to student overreliance, while late feedback cannot avoid potential errors during experimental learning.…

Embalming fixatives such as formaldehyde and phenol have been associated with occupational health hazards. While anatomists aim at replacing these chemicals, this seems presently unfeasible in particular for formaldehyde. Furthermore, fixation protocols usually require well-equipped facilities with highly experienced staff to achieve good fixation…

The goal of this study was to assess student's laboratory technique learning during online laboratories in response to the transition online caused by COVID-19. From Summer 2020 through Fall 2021 our General Chemistry 1 laboratories were completely online using at-home lab kits and 3 h weekly web conference sessions. Starting Spring 2021 select…

A multioutcome, guided inquiry-based liquid--liquid extraction (LLE) experiment has been designed for introductory organic chemistry. Multiple outcomes were established by identifying a series of red and blue dyes that are (1) soluble in organic solvent, (2) soluble in aqueous solution, or (3) soluble in either the organic or aqueous layers by…

Introductory physics lab instruction is undergoing a transformation, with increasing emphasis on developing experimentation and critical thinking skills. These changes present a need for standardized assessment instruments to determine the degree to which students develop these skills through instructional labs. In the first part of this thesis,…

Traditional developmental biology laboratory classes have utilized a number of different model organisms to allow students to be exposed to diverse biological phenomena in developing organisms. This traditional approach has mainly focused on the diverse morphological and anatomical descriptions of the developing organisms. However, modern…

An undergraduate experiment for the organic laboratory is described that utilizes microwave heating to prepare 5- substituted 1H-tetrazole derivatives through a (3 + 2) cycloaddition between aryl nitriles and sodium azide. The reaction mixture is analyzed by thin layer chromatography. The products are purified through an acid-base extraction and…

An initial goal of chemistry laboratory courses is almost always the "proper" use of laboratory resources including glassware and instruments. The proper use of glassware encompasses many topics, such as laboratory safety, technical proficiency, and recognition of function. However, as many chemical educators can attest, at both the K-12 and…