Electrochemistry is a significant area of analytical chemistry encompassing electrical measurements of chemical systems. The applications associated with electrochemistry appear in many aspects of everyday life: explaining how batteries work, how the human nervous system functions, and how metal corrosion occurs. The most common electrochemical…

Chemistry students and teachers often explain the chemical reactivity of atoms, molecules, and chemical substances in terms of purposes or needs (e.g., atoms want or need to gain, lose, or share electrons in order to become more stable). These teleological explanations seem to have pedagogical value as they help students understand and use…

A laboratory experiment has been developed to illustrate environmental and sustainability aspects, focusing on the wastewater treatment by means of superparamagnetic nanoparticles functionalized with humic acid. The experiment, conducted by a group of high school students, involves nanoparticle synthesis and minor characterization, followed by…

When designing a chemistry education research study it is important that the researcher select or create assessment instruments and methodologies that are valid. This ensures that correct interpretations can be made from the data collected using the instrument or methodology. The two studies described here introduce a novel method for…

A project-based biophysical chemistry laboratory course, which is offered to the biochemistry and molecular biology majors in their senior year, is described. In this course, the classroom study of the structure-function of biomolecules is integrated with the discovery-guided laboratory study of these molecules using computer modeling and…

Interlocking toy building blocks (e.g., Lego) as chemistry learning modules for blind and visually impaired (BVI) students in high school and undergraduate introductory or general chemistry courses are presented. Building blocks were assembled on a baseplate to depict the relative changes in the periodic properties of elements. Modules depicting…

The method of least squares (LS) yields exact solutions for the adjustable parameters when the number of data values n equals the number of parameters "p". This holds also when the fit model consists of "m" different equations and "m = p", which means that LS algorithms can be used to obtain solutions to systems of…

A 1 h classroom activity is presented, aimed at consolidating the concepts of microstates and Russell-Saunders energy terms in transition metal atoms and coordination complexes. The unconventional approach, based on logic and intuition rather than rigorous mathematics, is designed to stimulate discussion and enhance familiarity with quantum…

This study presents an analysis of alternative conceptions (ACs) on acid--base chemistry harbored by grade 9 students in Singapore. The ACs were obtained by the development and validation of a 4-tier diagnostic instrument. It is among the very few studies in the science education literature that have focused on examining results based also on…

Pedagogical practitioners who emphasise active learning in undergraduate chemistry courses widely use the Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) instrument to measure students' perceptions of their gains in knowledge and skills in chemistry. Although numerous studies have reported SALG results in support of successful pedagogical…

This manuscript presents an exercise that utilizes mathematical software to explore Fourier transforms in the context of model quantum mechanical systems, thus providing a deeper mathematical understanding of relevant information often introduced and treated as a "black-box" in analytical chemistry courses. The exercise is given to…

Determining the error of measurement is a necessity for researchers engaged in bench chemistry, chemistry education research (CER), and a multitude of other fields. Discussions regarding what constructs measurement error entails and how to best measure them have occurred, but the critiques about traditional measures have yielded few alternatives.…

Engaging students in class is paramount if they are to gain a deep understanding of class content. Student engagement is manifested by attention to the various components of instruction. However, there is little research at the tertiary level focusing on what aspects of instruction are related to changes in student attention during class. To…

Teaching complex chemistry concepts such as kinetics using inquiry-based learning techniques can be challenging in a high school classroom setting. Access to expensive laboratory equipment such as spectrometers is typically limited and most reaction kinetics experiments have been designed for advanced placement (AP) or first-year undergraduate…

This article describes how the authors began a science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) collaboration and completed three projects of varying complexity in their art and chemistry classrooms. The projects align with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013).