Understanding many scientific phenomena, processes, or systems may be especially dependent on a student's ability to visualize or manipulate spatial information in order to construct mental representations. One instructional technique often included in science texts to help students to understand difficult concepts is the use of concrete or…

A two-part laboratory experiment was designed for upper-level analytical chemistry students to provide hands-on experience in the use of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for separation and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for detection. In the first part of the experiment, the students analyze total arsenic in…

A simple setup is designed to investigate a "time-of-flight" measurement of the speed of sound in water. This experiment only requires low cost components and is also very simple to understand by students. It could be easily used as a demonstration experiment.

A green, aza-Michael reaction is described that can be used to teach undergraduate students conjugate addition of nitrogen nucleophile to an a,ß-unsaturated ester. Students analyze spectral data of the product obtained from the assigned reaction to determine product structure and propose the mechanism of its formation. The experiment requires…

Semiconductor nanoparticles, including cadmium selenide (CdSe) particles, are attractive as light harvesting materials for solar cells. In the undergraduate laboratory, the size-tunable optical and electronic properties can be easily investigated; however, these nanoparticles (NPs) offer another platform for application-based tunability--the NP…

Flotation as a method of separation is widely researched and is applied in many industries. It has been used to address a wide range of environmental issues including treatment of wastewater, recovery of heavy metals for recycling, extraction of minerals in mining, and so forth. This laboratory attempts to show how such a simple method can be used…

Fluorescence quenching assays are often used to measure dissociation constants that quantify the binding affinity between small molecules and proteins. In an upper-division undergraduate laboratory course, where students work on projects using a guided inquiry-based approach, a binding titration experiment at physiological pH is performed to…

Typically, introductory physics courses are taught with a combination of lectures and laboratories in which students have opportunities to discover the natural laws through hands-on activities in small groups. This article reports the use of Google Drive, a free online document-sharing tool, in physics laboratories for pooling experimental data…

General chemistry courses predominantly use expository experiments that shape student expectations of what a laboratory activity entails. Shifting within a semester to course-based undergraduate research activities that include greater decision-making, collaborative work, and "messy" real-world data necessitates a change in student…

Galen of Pergamon (130-200 A.D.) was an accomplished showman and scientist who made enormous advancements in the understanding of the heart, nervous system, and mechanics of breathing. These advancements were often achieved during impressive public "performances" of vivisection on Barbary apes and other living animals. These "shock…

A low-cost, time-resolved spectroscopy experiment appropriate for third year physical chemistry students is presented. Students excite o-methyl red in basic solutions with a laser pointer and use a modular spectrometer with a CCD array detector to monitor the transient spectra as the higher-energy cis conformer of the molecule converts back to the…

A number of organisations have provided instructions on how to produce small quantities of liquid oxygen in the classroom using liquid nitrogen and a copper condensation coil (Lister 1995 "Classic Chemistry Demonstrations" (London: Royal Society of Chemistry) pp 61-2, French and Hibbert 2010 "Phys. Educ." 45 221-2). The method…

In this paper we present a reasoning line for introducing the Pauli exclusion principle in the context of an introductory course on quantum theory based on the sum over paths approach. We start from the argument originally introduced by Feynman in "QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter" and improve it by discussing with students…

A simple, microscale experiment was developed with the aim of demonstrating the concept of umpolung in synthetic organic chemistry. Starting from a common alkyl sulfinate, students perform a polarity inversion by performing a Grignard-based sulfoxide synthesis and a Mannich-type formamide synthesis. The products are purified without chromatography…

This paper reports on a learning program designed for high school chemistry classes that involves laboratory exercises using household oxygen bleaches. In this program, students are taught the chemistry of oxygen bleaches through a stepwise inquiry using laboratory exercises organized with different pedagogical intents. Through comparative…