This advanced undergraduate laboratory experiment involves the synthesis and characterization of a metal-organic framework with microporous channels that are held intact via hydrogen bonding of the coordinated water molecules. The hydrothermal synthesis of Co[subscript 3](BTC)[subscript 2]·12H[subscript 2]O (BTC = 1,3,5-benzene tricarboxylic acid)…

The importance of kinetic metastability is illustrated in detail using several common household products and recommendations are made for how this important and widespread, but often neglected, phenomenon can be more effectively presented in the introductory chemistry textbook.

Studies in chemistry education show that chemistry topics are considered as abstract, complicated and hard to understand by students. For this reason, it is important to develop new materials and use them in classes for better understanding of abstract concepts. Moving from this point, a student-centered research guided by a teacher was conducted…

A rapid separation of three photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll "a" and "b" and xanthophyll) from fern ("Polystichum acrostichoides") is described using microscale solvent extraction and traditional thin layer chromatography that minimizes use of harmful chemicals and lengthy procedures. The experiment introduces…

Advances in, and dissemination of, computer technologies in the field of drug research now enable the use of molecular modeling tools to teach important concepts of drug design to chemistry and pharmacy students. A series of computer laboratories is described to introduce undergraduate students to commonly adopted "in silico" drug design…

American K-12 school curricula are often bereft of acknowledgements of the historical contributions of Arab societies to our present-day intellectual heritage, an oversight most apparent in the sciences. Teachers in a thriving democracy are obliged to introduce contemporary scholarship that reflects the contributions of Arab scientists between the…

Representations are an effective tool that chemistry teachers choose to use in their classes to help their students understand abstract concepts. According to the model of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), a teacher's knowledge of representations is part his/her PCK, which is shaped specifically by his/her orientation towards science teaching.…

This study investigated the effects of three strategies (i.e., guided discovery, think-pair-share, and lecture) on senior secondary school students' achievement in chemistry. A pretest, posttest, control group quasi-experimental design with a 3 × 3 × 2 factorial matrix was adopted for the study. Treatment was at three levels (guided discovery,…

This study examined the assessment of chemistry teachers' effectiveness by chemistry students. A survey research design was used. Two hundred students were sampled for the study from Benue State. The result showed that students agreed that their teachers cover a large part of the syllabus before the examination. Findings also revealed that there…

Cognitive styles are persistent patterns of behavior that determine how an individual acquires and processes information. In the classroom the cognitive styles of the teacher interact with those of the learner resulting in differential understanding. This study which is informed by cognitive styles theories is a descriptive study that examined the…

In this study, we describe a course to educate and prepare undergraduate "facilitators" for small group problem solving sessions in a large, first semester, introductory undergraduate organic chemistry course. We then explore the outcomes of the facilitator experience for one cohort of facilitators through qualitative analysis of written…

To scaffold the development of problem-solving skills in chemistry, chemistry educators are exploring a variety of instructional techniques. In this study, we have designed, implemented, and evaluated a problem-solving workflow--''Goldilocks Help''. This workflow builds on work done in the field of problem solving in chemistry and provides…

Different approaches to the use of "clickers" (also known as student response systems) were introduced to a cohort of 127 students over a two-year period with the aim of making students think more deeply in-class about their chemistry knowledge. Student performance was monitored, and individual, anonymous student feedback was frequently…

This study combined two important frameworks--teacher self-regulation and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)--to reveal whether they were related to each other. To fulfill this aim, researchers utilized a case-study design. Data were collected from five preservice chemistry teachers through semi-structured interviews, lesson plans in the form of…

This paper examines the process of high school students' planning investigations in the chemistry laboratory across two consecutive academic years in terms of their actions and their progress. The context is a set of five inquiry-based laboratory tasks in which participants (9th and 10th graders, 14-15 and 15-16 years of age) are required to plan…