Chemistry-specific informal science education (chemistry outreach) is widely practiced across all levels of the chemistry community. College students associated with American Chemical Society and Alpha Chi Sigma collegiate chapters are one population of chemistry outreach practitioners who reach upward of 1 million people every year. Previous…

In a two-step synthesis starting with Ni(CH[subscript 3]COO)[subscript 2] ·4H[subscript 2]O and salicylaldehyde, students prepare Nethyl and N-isopropyl Ni(II) Schiff base (imine) complexes. After isolation and recrystallization, the products are characterized by room-temperature magnetic susceptibility measurements, FTIR spectroscopy, and…

Two-stage collaborative testing is an assessment strategy that involves students initially writing a test individually and then immediately afterward writing the same (or similar) test again in groups. Current evidence shows that two-stage testing improves performance on multiple-choice tests as well as short-term retention of material, but little…

The VSEPR model has well-established limitations in its ability to represent accurate molecular and electronic geometries of simple molecules, which can create a significant need for students to relearn structure and bonding concepts in organic chemistry. We present an alternate method for describing molecular geometries and electronic structures…

This paper describes a responsive, digital periodic table that has been specifically designed as a visual aid for high school or college chemistry classrooms and lecture halls. The periodic table runs in a web browser and can therefore be used in any classroom that has a digital projector and screen. It features click-to-highlight table cells that…

The study presented here is a follow-up to a previous report in which we investigated how general-chemistry students in a transformed curriculum reason about simple acid-base reactions. In the present study, we use and adapt the previously developed coding scheme for a longitudinal study in which we follow students from general chemistry through…

In the world of higher education, one of the struggles instructors face in the classroom is engaging students in the material. A second discussion in higher education pedagogy is how to weigh content versus activity in the science classroom. How should college teaching be set up when students now have every fact ever found at their fingertips on a…

Background: Stakeholders' interpretations of the findings of large-scale educational assessments can influence important decisions. In the context of educational assessment, standard-setting remains an especially critical element, because it is complex and largely unstandardized. Instruments established by means of standard-setting procedures such…

This study examines differences in the ability of undergraduate students, taught in lecture-based or context-based general chemistry courses, to describe reaction kinetics. The subjects included 210 students from a residential science college at a large research university. Two open-ended questions were used to engage students' surface knowledge…

Since the emergence of augmented reality (AR), it has been a constant subject of educational research, as it can improve conceptual understanding and generally promote learning. In addition, a motivational effect and improved interaction and collaboration through AR were observed. Recently, AR technologies have taken a major leap forward in…

Multiple-choice (MC) exams are common in undergraduate general chemistry courses in the United States and are known for being difficult to construct. With their extensive use in the general chemistry classroom, it is important to ensure that these exams are valid measures of what chemistry students know and can do. One threat to MC exam validity…

A laboratory experiment is detailed that entails the separation and derivatization of the artificial sweetener sucralose from a commercially available sweetener mixture. The experiment utilizes 1 g packets of a sucralose-based artificial sweetener and involves the separation of the synthetic sweetener from the more polar bulk additives by…

A reliable method for bleach-based alcohol oxidation has been developed. Use of sodium bisulfate as the acid additive in the reaction mixture eliminates the various problems associated with acetic acid, which has commonly been used for this type of oxidation. By conducting the reaction in an ethyl acetate/water two-phase reaction mixture,…

Teaching the concept of pH buffers is considered to be important both in the final high-school years and at the early undergraduate level. Here, we propose the use of pH-log C diagrams to investigate the properties of pH buffers. This graphical approach is extremely simple to employ because it only requires drawing a simple square that can then be…

A collaborative learning module for teaching protein mass spectrometry has been developed to overcome common obstacles to incorporating the modern topic of biological mass spectrometry into the undergraduate chemistry curriculum. Protein mass spectrometry data is provided to eliminate the need for expensive instrumentation, and an instructor's…