Future college environments, including those in chemistry, will entail flexible formats. The pandemic spurred appreciation of the need, and though it has largely passed, adaptability to multiple formats in the future has been a critical part of planning for a rapidly changing future. Experiences during the pandemic will guide pedagogical changes…

We propose an innovative approach to teaching friction. Our approach aims to educate students on its microscopic nature by highlighting its origin in intermolecular interactions. We have designed a teaching sequence (TS) based on a set of experimental investigations of the properties of a gecko-inspired tape at different length scales. The TS has…

Teaching emulsion polymerization is an important benchmark in undergraduate polymer courses. However, the introduction of hands-on experiments in undergraduate polymer laboratories is challenging: experimental time, reagents, and equipment involved are the primary restraints. We report a practical emulsion polymerization laboratory experiment for…

We describe a novel experiment for high school students that uses gas chromatography (GC) equipment to demonstrate the principles of chemical quantitation in the context of fragrant compounds. A highlight of the work is the use of inexpensive equipment and tools accessible to the usual high school laboratory. The students use control samples,…

A multifaceted experiment, accessible to students either in an introductory organic chemistry course or in a more advanced laboratory setting, is described for investigating the addition of dichlorocarbene to E- and Z-[beta]-methylstyrenes. The innovative exercise, which integrates elements of synthesis, mechanisms, instrumental analysis,…

An experiment for the synthesis of N-acyl derivatives of natural amino acids has been developed as part of the Distributed Drug Discovery (D3) program. Students use solid-phase synthesis techniques to complete a three-step, combinatorial synthesis of six products, which are analyzed using LC-MS and NMR spectroscopy. This protocol is suitable for…

The stated purpose of this paper is to provide a simple and quick method to assemble pH electrodes using readily available materials. The present assembled electrodes are comparable with commercial pH electrodes, with accuracy for pH determination in the range 2-12. Furthermore, the constructed simple pH electrodes exhibit a fast and stable…

The CRISPR/Cas9 system is a powerful tool for gene editing and it has become increasingly important for biology students to understand this emerging technique. Most CRISPR laboratory teaching modules use complex metazoan systems or mammalian cell culture which can be expensive. Here, we present a lab module that engages students in learning the…

The synthesis of substituted 1,4-benzoquinones, a biologically important class of compounds, was developed using [mu]-oxodi(phenyliodanyl) diacetate, a (diacetoxyiodo)benzene-based oxidizing reagent, in order to introduce second-year undergraduate organic laboratory students in their second semester or advanced organic students to increasingly…

Quantum dots (QDs) are considered useful for demonstrating quantum phenomena in undergraduate laboratories due to their monodisperse size and excellent optical properties. Although doping has an increasingly important role in QD fabrication in the semiconductor field, it has rarely been discussed in the context of the undergraduate laboratory. In…

The effect of surfactant adsorption on surface tension, as well as associated thermodynamic concepts are introduced in a laboratory experiment designed for undergraduate students. Using a reliable and accessible method, students measure the surface tension of aqueous solutions at different concentrations of sodium dodecyl sulfate. Students collect…

Many laboratory courses consist of short and seemingly unconnected individual laboratory exercises. To increase the course consistency, relevance, and student engagement, we have developed a research-inspired and project-based module, "From Gene to Structure and Function". This 2.5-week full-day biochemistry and structural biology module…

We have developed a laboratory project in which students prepare liposomes, expose them to hyperosmotic and hypoosmotic solutions, and follow the resulting shrinking and swelling (respectively) with laser light scattering. Each light intensity transient can be fit to an exponential decline or rise, with the decay constant (k) and the amplitude…

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) have been described in a range of educational contexts. Although various learning objectives, termed anticipated learning outcomes (ALOs) in this project, have been proposed, processes for identifying them may not be rigorous or well-documented, which can lead to inappropriate assessment and…

In 1849, Hippolyte Fizeau determined the speed of light in a famous experiment. The idea was to measure the time taken for a pulse of light to travel between an intense light source and a mirror about 8 km away. A rotating cogwheel with 720 notches, that could be rotated at a variable speed, was used to chop the light beam and determine the flight…