This manuscript describes a laboratory exercise that allows students to use conductive atomic force microscopy (CAFM) for the analysis of electrodeposited, metallic structures. In addition to nanoscale electrical characterization with CAFM, this laboratory exercise also provides students with an opportunity to explore nanofabrication by…

Measurement uncertainty is a key topic in the university physics laboratory curriculum. In this study, we investigate students' ability to draw conclusions from measurement data and reasoning about measurement uncertainty in inquiry labs. This investigation centres around a task where students conclude whether measurements from two experiments…

When thinking about measurement uncertainty in a laboratory experiment that features quantum mechanical effects, it is important to consider both the physical principles of underlying quantum theory (e.g., the uncertainty due to quantum mechanical superposition states) as well as the limitations of the measurement (e.g., the spread in outcomes due…

Undergraduate physics laboratory exercises are very important in shaping students' attitude to science, especially for future teachers. Recently, it is necessary to look for ways to easily create large quantities of experimental sets, not only for institutional use, but also for sets that can be produced in large quantities and distributed for use…

Air pollution is one of our day's significant reasons for human health problems and affects every community throughout the world. Monitoring air pollution is a key aspect of raising awareness and pollution mitigation approaches followed by different nations. This paper targets to develop a low-cost Internet of things-based embedded system to…

Science labs should promote reasoning that resembles the work that scientists do. However, this is often not the case. We present a lab in which students strive to find out which of two models best describes a physics experiment. The quantification of measurement uncertainties--another topic that is often neglected in high school…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Instructional labs: Improving traditions and new directions.] Measurement uncertainty is a critical feature of experimental research in the physical sciences, and the concepts and practices surrounding measurement uncertainty are important components of physics lab courses. However, there has not…

The aldol condensation reaction is one of the many synthesis reactions carried out in second semester organic chemistry laboratories. This reaction was integrated into a novel experiment requiring students to synthesize dibenzalace tone derivatives using the crossed-aldol condensation by reacting different types of benzaldehyde derivatives with…

This laboratory experiment introduces upper-division undergraduate analytical chemistry students to liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) in a forensic application: the analysis of cocaine and metabolites of cocaine in simulated serum ostensibly from drug overdose victims. For this investigation, students developed the…

Every day we deal with chemistry in various forms, but sometimes we don't see that. An example is biosensors that help us to evaluate health conditions, monitor environmental pollution and ensure food freshness. The most well known (and most widely sold) is the biosensor for blood glucose measurement, used every day by people with diabetes.…

A low-cost simple one-dimensional spring-mass system was constructed to investigate damped oscillations. The suspended mass in the system can move freely inside a cylinder containing a fluid. It provides an in-depth experience for demonstrating various concepts under oscillations. It can be used to probe the magnitude of damping forces in liquids…

An engaging, simple, and cost-effective laboratory experiment has been implemented at our institution to teach undergraduate chemistry students about cyclic voltammetry and electrochemistry in general. This experiment involves the application of cyclic voltammetry to analyze a sample of acetaminophen (APAP) with the objective of determining the…

In a chemistry course for students not majoring in science, there is more to learn than some memorized facts: the student can find, in most non-major chemistry texts, the definition of atomic number, something about chemical bonding, and names of some classes of chemical compounds. Where facts come from and how accurately they are known are often…

The catalytic hydrogenation of alkenes and alkynes is an important part of the undergraduate chemistry curriculum and is a fundamental process in chemical industry. Inquiry-based laboratory activities are presented that investigate the hydrogenation of alkynes on a nanoparticle palladium surface to form alkenes, which go on to form alkanes. Alkyne…

The pendulum was an important scientific instrument in the 17th century. It became a typical textbook problem in the 18th century. After the introduction of vectors in physics in the 1890s, the pendulum problem started to be progressively solved in the manner we know nowadays from introductory mechanics courses. Starting from "F = ma"…