Seven p-nitrophenyl benzoate esters (p-nitrophenyl benzoate, p-nitrophenyl m-anisate, p-nitrophenyl p-anisate, p-nitrophenyl m-chlorobenzoate, p-nitrophenyl p-chlorobenzoate, p-nitrophenyl m-toluate, p-nitrophenyl p-toluate) were synthesized and characterized by students in a second-semester organic laboratory course. In a subsequent laboratory…

A well-constructed, step-by-step protocol is a critical starting point for teaching undergraduates new techniques, an important record of a lab's standard procedures, and a useful mechanism for sharing techniques between labs. Many research labs use websites to archive and share their protocols for these purposes. Here we describe our experiences…

There is an increasing need for students in the biological sciences to build a strong foundation in quantitative approaches to data analyses. Although most science, engineering, and math field majors are required to take at least one statistics course, statistical analysis is poorly integrated into undergraduate biology course work, particularly…

Discusses precaution in handling laboratory chemicals and research animals. Gives references, suggested readings, and a table showing fire hazard properties of some flammable liquids. (MLH)

Criteria for evaluating school choice mechanisms are first, whether truth-telling is sometimes punished and second, how efficient the match is. With common knowledge preferences, Deferred Acceptance (DA) dominates the Boston mechanism by the first criterion and is ambiguously ranked by the second. Our laboratory experiments confirm this. A new ex…

In daily life (e.g., in the work environment) people are often distracted by stimuli that are clearly irrelevant to the current task and should be ignored. In contrast, much applied distraction research has focused on task interruptions by information that requires a response and therefore cannot be ignored. Moreover, the most commonly used…

A common moving-coil loudspeaker is useful for learning harmonic motion. A simple optical method is used to observe free and forced oscillations of the diaphragm of a loudspeaker. With a lock-in amplifier and data-acquisition system, the frequency response of the loudspeaker and its electrical impedance are automatically recorded versus frequency.…

This paper describes how to calculate measurement uncertainties using as a practical example the assessment of the thickness of ping-pong balls and their material density. The advantages of a randomized experiment are also discussed. This experiment can be reproduced in the physics laboratory for undergraduate students. (Contains 7 tables, 1…

Supermarket Botany is a frequently-used teaching resource or strategy. It draws on a student's existing familiarity with plant-based foods to explore plant structure and life cycles. One of its strongest points is that it is adaptable to many age levels--from lower primary school to university and general interest groups. We have designed a unique…

It is important for students to be exposed to the concept of osmotic pressure. Understanding this concept lays the foundation for deeper discussions that lead to more theoretical aspects of water movement associated with the concepts of free energy, water potential, osmotic potential, pressure potential, and osmotic adjustment. The concept of…

As an example of how the effectiveness of well-designed laboratory interventions is often diffused in the field, we examined the effects of a motivation intervention on students' perceptions and learning. The intervention proved to be more effective in the laboratory (g = 0.45) than the field (g = 0.05) in enhancing subsequent motivation. We…

Lipid rafts have been implicated in numerous cellular processes including cell signaling, endocytosis, and even viral infection. Isolation of these lipid rafts often involves detergent treatment of the membrane to dissolve nonraft components followed by separation of raft regions in a density gradient. We present here an inquiry-based lab series…

Traditional dissection teaching is being reduced in a number of medical schools, particularly in the United Kingdom. In response to this, 12 medical students from Warwick University, UK, traveled to the Island of Grenada for an intensive extracurricular dissection course at St. George's University. This course not only benefited the host…

The physics of the plucked string has been treated in many articles and books. For our 12th-grade high school physics laboratory, we have built a cheap, simple sonometer apparatus for each pair of students on which they may investigate some interesting phenomena that arise when a string is plucked. Among these are the generation of harmonics…

This paper describes a process control experiment. The apparatus includes a three-vessel glass flow system with a variable flow configuration, means for feeding dye solution controlled by a stepper-motor driven valve, and a flow spectrophotometer. Students use impulse response data and nonlinear regression to estimate three parameters of a model…