Techniques are presented for improving the technical writing of chemical engineering students enrolled in an undergraduate laboratory course. The principles of writing covered are adopted from the book, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. Williams: General examples of writing are taken from this book and then are recast into examples…

In sports such as baseball, softball, golf, and tennis, a common objective is to hit the ball as fast or as far as possible. Another common objective is to hit the ball so that it spins as fast as possible, since the trajectory of the ball through the air is strongly affected by ball spin. In an attempt to enhance both the coefficient of…

This case study uses a daily cooking scenario to demonstrate how the boiling point of water is directly related to the external pressures in order to reinforce the concepts of boiling and boiling point, apply ideal gas law, and relate chemical reaction rates with temperatures. It also extends its teaching to autoclaves used to destroy…

The familiar word OREO (as in the cookie) is presented as a simple mnemonic for remembering the basic steps of the classical tautomerization mechanisms in organic chemistry. For acid-catalyzed tautomerizations, OREO stands for proton on, resonance, proton off. For base-catalyzed tautomerizations, OREO stands for proton off, resonance, proton on.…

Temperature and entropy traditionally are expressed in units of kelvin and joule/kelvin. These units obscure some important aspects of the natures of these thermodynamic quantities. Defining a rescaled temperature using the Boltzmann constant, T' = k[subscript B]T, expresses temperature in energy units, thereby emphasizing the close relationship…

A simple lecture demonstration is described to show the latent presence of metal atoms in a metal salt. Copper(II) formate tetrahydrate is heated in a round-bottom flask forming a high-quality copper mirror.

In response to a reader query, this article traces the origins of the ionic-radius ratio rules and their incorrect attribution to Linus Pauling in the chemical literature and to Victor Goldschmidt in the geochemical literature. In actual fact, the ionic-radius ratio rules were first proposed within the context of the coordination chemistry…

Even though the buoyancy force (also known as the Archimedes force) has always been an important topic of academic studies in physics, its point of application has not been explicitly identified yet. We present a quantitative approach to this problem based on the concept of the hydrostatic energy, considered here for a general shape of the…

In "Photobacterium," the flavin reductase encoded by "lux"G regenerates the reduced form of flavin mononucleotide (FMN). Reduced FMN is one of the substrates of the luciferase enzyme that catalyzes a light-emitting reaction. A set of experiments, that employs a "lux"G-expression plasmid construct (pGhis) and is suitable for an undergraduate…

An Adobe[R] animation is presented for use in undergraduate Biochemistry courses, illustrating the mechanism of Na[superscript +] and K[superscript +] translocation coupled to ATP hydrolysis by the (Na, K)-ATPase, a P[subscript 2c]-type ATPase, or ATP-powered ion pump that actively translocates cations across plasma membranes. The enzyme is also…

We developed an inquiry-based biology laboratory exercise in which undergraduate students designed experiments addressing whether material from the neem tree ("Azadirachta indica") altered bean beetle ("Callosobruchus maculatus") movements and oviposition. Students were introduced to the bean beetle life cycle, experimental…

It has been suggested that research experiences are an important element that should be included in all undergraduate Biology curricula. This is a difficult suggestion to accommodate due to issues with cost, space and time. We addressed this challenge through development of a capstone project in which Biology majors work in groups to develop novel…

First-year undergraduate physics laboratories are important physics learning environments. However, there is a lack of empirically informed literature regarding how students perceive their overall laboratory learning experiences. Recipe formats persist as the dominant form of instructional design in these sites, and these formats do not adequately…

In this study, we examine introductory physics students' ability to perform analogical reasoning between two isomorphic problems which employ the same underlying physics principles but have different surface features. 382 students from a calculus-based and an algebra-based introductory physics course were administered a quiz in the recitation…

We have just completed the data collection for our 2012-13 Nationwide Survey of High School Physics and expect to have results to report in the spring. In the interim, we will take a look at physics in two-year colleges (TYCs). In 2007, we surveyed undergraduate seniors in degree-granting physics departments, and we asked these students if they…