This is the second in a series of exercises used to teach computational chemistry. It has been adapted, with permission, from a Shodor CCCE exercise (http://www.computationalscience.org/ccce).
It was tested on WebMO Version 18 but should work with minimal modification on earlier versions. WebMO is a free web-based interface to computational chemistry packages (www.webmo.net).
This is the first in a series of exercises used to teach computational chemistry. It has been adapted, with permission, from a Shodor CCCE exercise (http://www.computationalscience.org/ccce).
This in-class activity was designed for a Chemical Communications course with second-year students. It is the first part of a two-week segment in which students learn how to use Chemdraw (or similar drawing software) to create digital drawings of molecules.
This in-class activity was designed for a Chemical Communications course with second-year students. It is the second part of a two-week segment in which students learn how to use ChemDraw (or similar drawing software to create digital drawings of molecules).
What is a foundations inorganic course? Here is a great description
The Interactive Syllabus is a web-based survey delivery of syllabus content to your students prior to the first day of classes. The web link below explains many of the features and advantages, but in my opinion some of the best benefits are (1) students actually engage with the content on the syllabus in meaningful ways, (2) it saves class time on the first day, and (3) can encourage students to share questions/concerns they may not have been as eager to share in person.
The survey is built on the qualtrics platform, but could be adapted for other programs.
This acitivty is a foundation level discussion of the Nicolai Lehnert paper, "Mechanism of N-N Bond Formation by Transition Metal-Nitrosyl Complexes: Modeling Flavodiiron Nitric Oxide Reductases". Its focus lies in discussing MO theory as it relates to Lewis structures, as well as an analysis of the strucutre of a literature paper.
For inorganic lab, I have my students write their lab reports in the style of the journal Inorganic Chemistry. The first week of lab, we spend time in small groups looking at several examples of recent articles from Inorganic Chemistry, focusing mainly on the experimental section and the abstract (as these are included in every lab report). We then come back together as a class to have a discussion of each of the sections in the articles. We discuss what was included in each section, what wasn’t included, and the style, tone, tense, and voice of each section.
I present a format for more effective communiction of errors in lab reports to students that I term Errors Checklists. Grading lab reports are one of the banes of our existence as professors. They are endless, unremitting papers that need to be scrutinized for accuracy, precision and understanding.
For twenty years, I have started my second-year Inorganic Chemistry class with a few PowerPoint slides illustrating the inorganic chemistry that is present in a number of societal areas. The point is to emphasize to the students that inorganic chemistry is present in all aspects of life. To make this process more interactive, I made "game pieces" with a topic on the front (e.g, photography or radiation protection or vitamin B12) and an area on the back (energy, materials, biology, medicine, or environment). As each student enters the class, they are asked to take one game piece.