This excercise explains the basics of drawing graphs for an introductory chemistry class. It give examples of common pitfalls and how to avoid them. Students are guided through graphing a data set, adjusting axes, adding trend lines, modifying legends and adding appropriate labels. The excercise also provides several examples of graphs and asks students to critically evaluate them.
While informally chatting with friends in our math department, I realized that I could put together a presentation about how chemists use group theory. I was invited to give the presentation as part of our math department's weekly colloquium series. The talk was to be one hour in length, and my math colleague described their typical format as:
I modified the Barb Reisner/Joanne Stewart/Maggie Geselbracht First Day TOC activity (https://www.ionicviper.org/class-activity/introducing-inorganic-chemist…) to take advantage of the quarterly list of Top 10 Most Read articles that IC sends out. This is delivered to me as an email from ACS pubs and I am sure that it is available to anyone who wished to subscribe to the updates. I have attached a pdf copy of the August 2013 update as an example.
Cmap Tools is a powerful free program that can be used to create concept maps. The program works on any platform.
Thanks to Kurt Birdwhistell for posting the link to this tool to the forum a while back.
(1) Student choses and reads a journal article of his/her choice that is related to a topic we have discussed during the semester. (i.e. atomic structure, MO theory, group theory, solid state structure, band theory, coordination chemistry, organometallics, catalysis). Suggested journals include, but are not limited to JACS, Inorg. Chem., Organometallics, Angew. Chem., JOMC, Chem. Comm.)
(2) Student answers the following questions regarding their chosen article:
(a) Describe, in 1 or 2 sentences the goal of this work.
Chemical acrostic is used as a teaching tool in descriptive inorganic chemistry. This is an active learning approach to engage the students with a fun classroom activity. The acrostics are designed by Simon Cotton and published in the Royal Society of Chemistry's education resource magazine "The Mole." The students are divided into groups of two or three to work on the acrostics. To come up with the answers, the students engage in meaningful group discussions that enhance conceptual understanding.
Covers the geometries and symmetries of the seven crystal systems in an inquiry-based manner. 2-D paper templates are provided, which the students cut out, fold, and tape together to create 3-D representations of the seven crystal systems: triclinic, monoclinic, orthorhombic, tetragonal, rhombohedral, hexagonal, and cubic. The students can then use these to determine the geometries and symmetries of the systems for themselves.
This website provides a link to a simple downloadable program that introduces students to a Schlenk line through a series of short animations. It is designed for Windows (does not appear to work on Windows 8 or on Macs). While a bit rudimentary, it does a nice job of showing students the basic setup, discussing safety concerns with the liquid nitrogen trap, and outlining the general procedure for starting up and shutting down the Schlenk line.
Beginning with Volume 43, Issue 25, Inorganic Chemistry began publishing Forums.
Inorganic Chemistry Forums consist of a set of thematically linked papers from leading scientists on a multidisciplinary topic of growing interest. Papers present overviews, research perspectives and original research reports on the Forum theme and are highlighted on the cover of the journal issue in which they appear.