A modified total synthesis of (S)-goniothalamin is described for an advanced course in organic chemistry. This experiment gives students an opportunity to handle organometallic reagents and perform an enzymatic kinetic resolution and a metathesis reaction, all in the same synthesis. Furthermore, students learn flame-drying techniques for the…

Between 1880 and 1920 the way science was taught in American High Schools changed dramatically. The old "lecture/demonstration" method, where information was presented to essentially passive students, was replaced by the "laboratory" method, where students performed their own experiments in specially constructed student laboratories. National…

Presents a physical inorganic experiment in which large single crystals of the alkali halides doped with divalent ion impurities are prepared easily. Demonstrates the ion pairing of inorganic ions in solid solution. (CS)

Describes an experiment for general chemistry that illustrates the use of spectroscopy in the synthesis, characterization, and nitration of tris(acetylacetonato)cobalt (III). (CS)

Discusses some aspects in X-ray topography, including formation of dislocations, characteristics of stacking faults, x-ray contrast in defect inspection, Berg-Barrett technique, and Lang traversing crystal and Borrmann's methods. (CC)

Describes the procedures for construction of a nitrate coated-wire ion selective electrode and suggests experiments for evaluation of electrode response and illustration of typical analytical applications of ion selective electrodes. (CS)

Presents an undergraduate experiment demonstrating sampling error. Selected as the sampling system is a mixture of potassium hydrogen phthalate and sucrose; using a self-zeroing, automatically refillable buret to minimize titration time of multiple samples and employing a dilute back-titrant to obtain high end-point precision. (CS)

Presents an undergraduate quantitative analysis experiment, describing an atomic absorption quantitation scheme that is fast, sensitive and comparatively simple relative to other titration experiments. (CS)

Describes an undergraduate experiment designed to verify quantitatively the effect of a dielectric fluid's dielectric constant on the observed wavelength of microwave radiation propagating through the fluid. The fluid used is castor oil, and results agree with the expected behavior within 5 percent. (Author/CS)

Describes an experiment with Orange II to illustrate a central idea of thermodynamics--the amount of work that must be done to bring about a particular transformation depends not only on the energy content of the initial and final states but also on the degrees of dispersion of those states. (CS)

Describes a general chemistry experiment involving gas law calculations, utilizing Alka Seltzer as a source of carbon dioxide. (CS)

Describes several simple experiments that can be used to observe directly the dispersion curve of plasmon surface polaritons (PSP) on flat metal surfaces. A method is described of observing the increonental change in the wave vector of the PSP due to coatings that differ in thickness by a few nanometers. (Author/CS)

Introduces a range of simple ideas about soil physical properties using a minimum of apparatus. (MKR)

Reports on the successful classroom use of commercial fertilizers as growth media. (ZWH)