Physical Chemistry's birth was fraught with controversy, a controversy about electrolyte solution chemistry which has much to say about how scientific knowledge originates, matures, and responds to challenges. This has direct implications for the way our students are educated in physical chemistry in particular and science in general. The…

Mathematical methods are described for the determination of steady-state concentrations of all species in multiequilibria systems consisting of several acids and their conjugated bases in aqueous solutions. The main example consists of a mixture of a diprotic acid H[subscript 2]A, a monoprotic acid HB, and their conjugate bases. The reaction…

The communication infrastructure of modern science is provided by profit-oriented business firms: the publishing houses which print and distribute academic books and journals. Surprisingly, beyond some rather superficial impressions, in science studies little is known about how academic publishers work--in particular, how markets for books and…

Particularly in the second half of the 20th century, historical approaches became relevant in science education. This development can at least in part be explained with the growing awareness of the importance to address Nature of Science aspects in science education. In comparison to the international publications, some particularities can be…

The people, events, and issues that were involved in the beginning and the evolution of the "Journal of Chemical Education" and the Division of Chemical Education (DivCHED) are traced and discussed. The constitution of the American Chemical Society incorporates the roots of chemical education as an area of interest to the Society. Both…

The design and construction of an apparatus to measure the optical birefringence of a liquid crystal is described. The instrument also includes temperature control and monitoring circuitry to allow for the measurement of the nematic-to-isotropic phase transition temperature. An important feature of this design is that the students are able to…

All pH calculations for simple acid-base systems used in introductory courses on general or analytical chemistry can be carried out by using a general procedure requiring the use of predominance diagrams. In particular, the pH is calculated as the sum of an independent term equaling the average pK[subscript a] values of the acids involved in the…

Typically most college curricula include three acid base models: Arrhenius', Bronsted-Lowry's, and Lewis'. Although Lewis' acid base model is generally thought to be the most sophisticated among these three models, and can be further applied in reaction mechanisms, most general chemistry curricula either do not include Lewis' acid base model, or…

"Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Access to Advanced Mathematics and Science Courses" is the second in a series of Learning Policy Institute reports analyzing data primarily from the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). This report uses the most recent CRDC data from 2017-18. The CRDC includes data on a…

Size exclusion chromatography is an important technique in the separation of biological and polymeric samples by molecular weight. While a number of laboratory experiments have been published that use this technique for the purification of large molecules, this is the first report of an experiment that focuses on purifying an unknown small…

As part of the ACS Examinations Institute (ACS-EI) national norming process, student performance data sets are collected from professors at colleges and universities from around the United States. Because the data sets are collected on a volunteer basis, the ACS-EI often receives data sets with only students' total scores and without the students'…

Chemistry Laboratory serves all of the students that were programmed chemistry laboratory works. The satisfaction of the students was studied that involving 50 students. The study was conducted to measure the students' satisfaction towards the services offered by the laboratory. Measurement of the students' satisfaction was conducted using…

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) precipitates in many kinds of aqueous salt solutions. While sodium sulfate, a coagulant for PVA fiber, precipitates PVA to yield a white rigid gel, coagulation of PVA with aluminum sulfate, a coagulant for water treatment, yields a slime-like viscoelastic fluid. One type of homemade slime is prepared under basic…

A small-scale wastewater cleaning plant is described that includes the key physical pretreatment steps followed by the chemical treatment of mud by flocculation. Water, clay particles, and riverside deposits mimicked odorless wastewater. After a demonstration of the optimization step, the flocculation process was carried out with iron(III)…

Students in undergraduate organic chemistry courses are frequently overwhelmed by the volume and complexity of information they are expected to learn. To aid in students' learning of organic functional groups, a novel card game "ChemKarta" is reported that can serve as a useful alternative to flashcards. This pedagogy is a simple…