No nuclear in our inorganic lecture or laboratory course.  Like you, we touch on it at the end of general chemistry, but that's the beginning and end of it. 

So there you go - one more data point.

At USNA, nuclear chemistry is given a little over a week of coverage (several lecture periods and 1 lab period) since we are preparing students to serve aboard submarines and some nuclear-powered ships. Despite this relevance for our students, it is not an explicit part of our inorganic course. Something to consider changing the future.....

At Hamilton we only have a one-semester intro course, and so many things are left out including nuclear chemistry. I talked myself during my leave last year into devoting at least 2 lectures to nuclear chemistry and explaining what constitutes matter at the very beginning of my descriptive inorganic course. I trying it out this spring semester and will focus the topic on the structure and properties of the nucleus (not nuclear energy, radiation doseages, or synthesis of the super-actinides). Actually, I am starting out with quarks and the Higgs (because what is cooler than the Higgs boson?) and the four fundamental forces and then on to surveys on nuclear stability, binding energy, nuclear decay processes and kinetics, and the synthesis of the elements in stars. My experience is that students love this topic, probably because it is so different.

Nuclear chemistry gets no real coverage in gen chem (except in brief discussion of formation of the elements in stars).  We use Rayner-Canham & Overton in the sophomore inorganic class and Emsley's elements book, so again, except for the background information about element formation, we don't cover it here, either.  I will cover a little in our advanced inorganic (senior level) course this year (basically, what is covered in Ch 1 of Shriver & Atkins).  In short, we don't cover it!  We are on again/off again in terms of covering it in our nursing majors' one-semester GOB; currently off. 

We also don't do any significant coverage of nuclear in our core undergraduate curriculum. We spend 1-2 days on the topic in General Chemistry II. I don't talk about it in either of our inorganic courses. Students who are interested in the topic have a chance to take an elective course on nuclear chemistry (which includes a lab) taught by one of our analytical chemists.

Amanda,

I cover nuclear chemistry for about 2 days in General Chemistry I.  I do not cover it in Inorganic at all - not in my sophomore-level course nor in an upper-level seminar.

Cheers, Anthony

Amanda - I've started looking at the data collected from the community survey on what is taught in inorganic chemistry. Here are some nuclear numbers for you.

In the foundational level course, 16% of people who teach this course (55/334) cover nuclear chemistry.
When asked how the coverage of nuclear chemistry has changed in the past 5 years, of the 90 respondents, 7% said it increased (6), 69% said it stayed the same (62), and 24% said it decreased (22).

In the in-depth level course, 8% of people who teach this course (15/187) cover nuclear chemistry.
When asked how the coverage of nuclear chemistry has changed in the past 5 years, of the 41 respondents, 2% said it increased (1), 66% said it stayed the same (27), and 32% said it decreased (13).

Hi Amanda,

I just noticed this post although it's from a while ago, and wanted to respond because it looks like I'm in the minority. (Karen B., what you described you were planning on doing sounds cool--I hope it went well for you!).  In 2013, in response to student interest, I started teaching nuclear chemistry in the first three lectures of my junior-level inorganic class.  I have received an overwhelmingly positive response from both years.  They were intrigued, felt that it was important to learn, and had not learned any of it in any other course (we do not cover it at all in intro).  Besides anedotal comments from students, I gauged interest by noting that many of the literature reports they did later in the semester were on studies of radioactive compounds--some with medicinal applications, but others with nuclear energy applications.  I know that I'm losing a few days, but given the response, I'm going to keep doing it.  

I hope this gives you more food for thought, although the issue might be moot for you by now. :)

Cheers!
Karen

When I started writing POGIL-like guided-inquiry activities for inorganic (1-semester, senior-level course), I gave nuclear about an hour of class time.  I really like the idea of starting from scratch and building things up, and I wonder how many graduating chemistry majors would otherwise have any idea of where the different elements come from.  As I have revised the activities, the nuclear ones have turnedout to be some of the favorites.  A fair bit of the early material in the course is review, so it is nice to start with a topic that seems a little more new and exciting.   

Joseph, would you consider posting your activity to VIPEr? It sounds like an activity that the community would benefit from!

I am willing share POGIL-like materials on an individual basis (email keane@muhlenberg.edu), but I hope to publish the set as a workbook at some point, so it may be best to not post them on the general site.