3-D topographic surfaces ("topos") can be generated to visualize how pH behaves during titration and dilution procedures. The surfaces are constructed by plotting computed pH values above a composition grid with volume of base added in one direction and overall system dilution on the other. What emerge are surface features that…

Synthesizing and testing bicomposite adsorbents for the removal of environmentally problematic oxy-anions is high on the agenda of research-led universities. Here we present a laboratory module successfully developed at Imperial College London that introduces the advanced undergraduate student in engineering (chemical, civil, earth) and science…

Instructional labs are widely seen as a unique, albeit expensive, way to teach scientific content. We measured the effectiveness of introductory lab courses at achieving this educational goal across nine different lab courses at three very different institutions. These institutions and courses encompassed a broad range of student populations and…

With the development of new sequencing and bioinformatics technologies, concepts relating to personal genomics play an increasingly important role in our society. To promote interest and understanding of sequencing and bioinformatics in the high school classroom, we developed and implemented a laboratory-based teaching module called "The…

Do summer laboratory research apprenticeships during high school have an impact on entry into MD/PhD programs? Apart from the nearly decade-long span of time between high school and matriculation into an MD/PhD program, young people have many life-shaping experiences that presumably impact their education and career trajectories. This quantitative…

Many post-secondary institutions provide training and resources to help GTAs fulfil their teaching roles. However, few programmes focus specifically on the teaching competencies required by GTAs who work with undergraduate students in laboratory settings where learning tends to be more active and inquiry based than in classroom settings. From a…

This study investigated the effects of practical activities and manual on science students' academic performance on solubility in Uruan Local Education Authority of Akwa Ibom State. The study adopted pretest, posttest non randomized quasi experimental design. Three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. One…

We have frequently enhanced our department's laboratory experiment involving standing transverse waves in a taut horizontal cord. In addition to the standard experiment, students in these labs investigate the surprising concept that the acceleration of a pulse in a chain hanging vertically is a constant and is equal to half the acceleration…

We describe the principles of macroscopic charged particle detection in the laboratory and their connections to concepts taught in the physics classroom. Electrostatic dust accelerator systems, capable of launching charged dust grains at hypervelocities (1-100 km/s), are a critical tool for space exploration. Dust grains in space typically have…

Here we describe classroom-based procedures aiming at the estimation of the speed of sound in different gas mixtures with the help of a plastic drain pipe and two iPhones or iPod touches. The procedures were conceived to be performed with simple and readily available tools.

The gyroscope in a smartphone was employed in a physics laboratory setting to verify the conservation of angular momentum and the nonconservation of rotational kinetic energy. As is well-known, smartphones are ubiquitous on college campuses. These devices have a panoply of built-in sensors. This creates a unique opportunity for a new paradigm in…

A simple method is presented to show kids the size of a microbe--a fungus hypha--compared to a human hair. Common household items are used to make sterile medium on a stove or hotplate, which is dispensed in the cells of a weekly plastic pill box. Mold fungi can be easily and safely grown on the medium from the classroom environment. A microscope…

"The viscosity of the blood in narrow capillary tubes" by Robin Fahraeus and Torsten Lindqvist ("Am J Physiol" 96: 562--568, 1931) can be a valuable opportunity for teaching basic hemorheological principles in undergraduate cardiovascular physiology. This classic paper demonstrates that a progressive decline in apparent…

The familiar bell-jar demonstration, commonly used to show that sound cannot travel in a vacuum, is revisited in this study. It is suggested that by emphasizing the different media present in this set-up, sound propagation in near-vacuum conditions can be made possible. In this way, the concept of sound propagation in this set-up can be examined…

A two-part demonstration was conducted in our first-semester organic chemistry course designed to introduce students to the formation of alcohols, regioselective reactions, and analysis of organic products by NMR analysis. This demonstration utilized the oxymercuration-demercuration sequence to prepare an alcohol from an alkene in a Markovnikov…