The COVID pandemic forced teachers to be imaginative, especially with purely practical subjects such as laboratory chemistry. In the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the first-semester chemistry laboratory of the Biology course was taught with a chemistry set to be used at home. The use of the kit was evaluated from the perspective of…

Computational chemistry instructional activities are often based around students running chemical simulations via a graphical user interface (GUI). GUI-based activities offer many advantages, as they enable students to run chemical simulations with a few mouse clicks. Although these activities are excellent for introducing students to the…

Electrophoresis is integral to analytical and biochemistry experiences in undergraduate education; however, fundamental principles of the method are often taught in upper-level laboratories through hands-on experiences. A laboratory activity is reported that teaches the concepts of electrophoretic mobility and electroosmotic flow. A single…

In 1996, the Chemistry Department at Norwich University converted its two-semester General Chemistry course from a traditional lecture to a Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) classroom. The change to POGIL teaching in Norwich General Chemistry classes was brought about by a steady decline in student performance, as demonstrated by…

We tested the long-term effects of a utility-value intervention administered in a gateway chemistry course, with the goal of promoting persistence and diversity in STEM. In a randomized controlled trial (N = 2,505), students wrote three essays about course content and its personal relevance or three control essays. The intervention significantly…

When teaching undergraduate biology courses, developing engaging activities which allow students to learn using a hands-on pedagogy can provide impactful learning moments for students. This activity helps students make connections between lecture content on environmental issues, e.g., the use of microplastics (MPs) and their own day-to-day…

Communication skills are one of the abilities required for 21st-century learning. Students must consider communication skills in learning because they can guide students in conveying ideas effectively and interacting and collaborating with others. This study aimed to investigate the online reading-concept mapping-reciprocal teaching (REMAP-RT)…

Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) is a versatile and widely used technique to detect and quantify small molecules in various clinical and analytical applications. It is also an effective tool for demonstrating the specificity between antibody and antigen to students across diverse disciplines. However, undergraduate laboratories often face…

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…

The separation of suspensions and immiscible liquids by the laboratory centrifuge is widely used in such fields as chemistry, biology, biochemistry, and clinical medicine. In this paper, an Arduino-based microcentrifuge was fabricated using a computer DVD (digital versatile disc) drive. The hardware part consisted of inexpensive mechanical and…

The aim of this study is to explore how tertiary science students' use of metaphors in their popular science article writing may influence their understanding of subject matter. For this purpose, six popular articles written by students in physics or geology were analysed by means of a close textual analysis and a metaphor analysis. In addition,…

Instructive, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly laboratory syntheses of two highly luminescent copper(I) complexes CuI(PPh[subcript 3])[subscript 2](py[superscript R]) (py[superscript R] = pyridine, 4-cyanopyridine) are described for second-year/upper-division undergraduate inorganic chemistry students. Both complexes exhibit bright…

For the past century, humans have been increasingly dependent on plastics, but have not developed adequate disposal practices. In this lab, students are asked whether burning plastic for energy seems like a reasonable disposal technique. To answer the chemical aspects of this question, students use bomb calorimetry to quantify the combustion…

Biocompatible and biodegradable block copolymers composed of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and aliphatic polyester are a class of promising biomaterials. Herein, a teaching experiment was designed to furnish undergraduates with a reliable method to synthesize an amphiphilic poly([epsilon]-caprolactone)-PEG-poly([epsilon]-caprolactone) (PCL-PEG-PCL)…

A low-cost multispectral imager was built using a multiwavelength LED PCB (light-emitting diode printed circuit board), 3D printed housing, and a monochrome camera, and it was controlled via National Instruments LabVIEW software coupled with some simple electronics. Multivariate data analysis was performed using freely available software packages.…