How many of us have cringed at the basic lack of chemical knowledge on display on your friend's Facebook page?

What is our responsibility to teach in these circumstances?  Maybe none at all.  This is a social space after all.  

But in our classrooms and teaching labs, our responsibility is different.  

I've been thinking a lot about how we teach chemical safety lately.  As I set up a new laboratory at UM Dearborn, a decade and a half into my independent career, I am trying to take the opportunity to make my workspace  and my work habits safer, both for myself and for the next generation of students who will move through my lab.

In January I wrote about the most adopted/favorited Lit. Discussion LOs and at that time I promised to make this a somewhat regular series on BITeS. Not wanting to disappoint my vast audience, I thought it was time for the second in the series, this time taking a look at the most adopted/favorited Problem Sets. Once again, there are some ties, so the numbering might look a little odd, but trust me, there will be 10. Just a reminder, this list comes from you, the loyal VIPEr users.

Greetings everyone,

I thought I would take a break from basking in the sun to tell you a little bit about things going on with your favorite site dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of inorganic chemistry.

Over the years, I’ve adopted (and adapted) many LOs in my inorganic courses. My courses have changed not only because of the LOs that I’ve used, but also because of the tips I’ve taken from members of the IONiC community.

One of my favorite things to do is to recognize outstanding undergraduate students. It's even more special to be able to recognize outstanding inorganic students!

Inorganic Chemistry Trainwreck

The great experiment, 2017

At a recent local section meeting I talked with some folks about VIPEr. And one of the complaints (and a very fair one) is the bewildering array of content to sort through. We are perfectly willing to admit, there is a lot of great content on the site that can be a bit intimidating to sort through. While our search engine has improved, it is far from perfect and can often lead to lots of results that you have to sort through. In thinking about ways we could try and help you navigate the content, I thought of using BITeS to help a little bit.

The IONiC VIPEr group has enough funds at the end of our grant to host one additional workshop for about 16 participants.

Well, it's time to dust off the symmetry challenge. First offered in 2009, we've made some changes to the site and our social media presence (I'm looking at you Flo, with your Facebook, and Twitter addiction) that make it likely that we will have more than just 2 schools submitting. If you're looking for a fun competition to pit your students against students across the world, here it is. Since symmetry is usually an early component of an inorganic course, I'm making the deadline March 3rd.