A drug discovery project has been successfully implemented in a first-year general, organic, and biochemistry (GOB) health science course and second-year organic undergraduate chemistry course. This project allows students to apply the fundamental principles of chemistry and biology to a problem of medical significance, practice basic laboratory…

A three-tiered experiment for undergraduate Instrumental Analysis students is presented in which students characterize the solid-state thermal behavior of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (acetaminophen) and excipient (a-lactose hydrate) using differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, and thermal microscopy. Students are…

Drawing upon the Search for Ideas in Associative Memory (SIAM) model as the theoretical framework, the impact of heterogeneity and topic relevance of visual stimuli on ideation performance was examined. Results from a laboratory experiment showed that visual stimuli increased productivity and diversity of idea generation, that relevance to the…

The written lab report--a concise and accurate accounting of an experiment, including a summary of the procedure, presentation of the results, reasoned analysis, and thoughtful explanation--is essential to the scientific endeavor and a key expression and product of inquiry. Generally, however, students and teachers dislike these reports, the…

A laboratory application with a strong component in analytical chemistry was designed for undergraduate students, in order to introduce a current problem in the environmental science field, the water contamination by antibiotics. Therefore, a simple and rapid method based on direct injection and high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass…

Cooking is a tangible, familiar, and delicious tool for teaching physics, which is easy to implement in a university setting. Through our courses at Harvard and UCLA, each year we are engaging hundreds of undergraduate students, primarily non-science majors, in science concepts and the scientific research process. We find that weekly lectures by…

A multiday laboratory experiment was designed to integrate inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) in the context of protein quantification into an advanced practical course in analytical and environmental chemistry. Graduate students were familiar with the analytical methods employed, whereas the combination of bioanalytical assays…

The Holy Cross Chemistry Department has designed and implemented an experiment on buffers as part of our Discovery Chemistry curriculum. The pedagogical philosophy of Discovery Chemistry is to make the laboratory the focal point of learning for students in their first two years of undergraduate instruction. We first pose questions in prelaboratory…

High-resolution solid-state NMR (SSNMR) spectroscopy has many advantages as a tool to characterize solid-phase material that finds applications in polymer chemistry, nanotechnology, materials science, biomolecular structure determination, and others, including the pharmaceutical industry. The technology associated with achieving high resolution…

This paper describes the development of a simple handmade conductivity measurement apparatus based on a Kohlrausch bridge with inexpensive materials. We have examined the reliability of this apparatus with standard solutions and then measured juices of vegetables and fruits as well as a sports drink. Comparisons to total alkali content as…

A laboratory method for teaching inorganic qualitative analysis and chemical equations is described. The experiment has been designed to focus attention on cations and anions that react to form products. This leads to a logical approach to understand and write chemical equations. The procedure uses 3 mL plastic micropipettes to store and deliver…

The anatomical theatre played a pivotal role in the evolution of medical education, allowing students to directly observe and participate in the process of dissection. Due to the increase of training programs in clinical anatomy, the Institute of Human Anatomy at the University of Padova has renovated its dissecting room. The main guidelines in…

A 3D model visualization and basic molecular modeling laboratory suitable for first-year undergraduates studying introductory medicinal chemistry is presented. The 2 h practical is embedded within a series of lectures on drug design, target-drug interactions, enzymes, receptors, nucleic acids, and basic pharmacokinetics. Serving as a teaching aid…

Under a previous grant (2005-08), researchers and teachers at Stanford University (SU) and the University of Gothenburg (GU) co-designed a ten-week interdisciplinary, research-based laboratory course in human biology to be taught online to undergraduate students. Essentials in the subject were taught during the first four weeks of this course.…

A modified laboratory experiment for undergraduate students is presented to evaluate the effects of the ionic strength, "I", on the equilibrium concentration quotient, K[subscript c], of the acid-base indicator bromcresol green (BCG). The two-step deprotonation of the acidic form of the dye (sultone form), as it is dissolved in water, yields…