I teach a one-semester upper-division course where, as we all know, tough decisions need to be made.  I have always taught symmetry, but it has become apparent that our students enter their senior year weak in kinetics, so I am considering swapping out symmetry/group theory for a more advanced treatment of kinetics and mechanisms.  This pains me, because these two topics are are two of my favories.  Then again, so is everything else...

Thoughts?

Karen

Dear VIPEr friends,

I am teaching an advanced undergraduate group theory, molecular orbital theory, computational chemistry course this semester and having a ball. My question has to do with what we expect students to learn (what will they know and be able to do) when doing computational chemistry. I'm looking for answers beyond the obvious: learning the mechanics of setting up and visualizing the results of a calculation.

This is the first time I've posted to a forum.  Hope "Research" was the right category.

I'm teaching a jr./sr. level Inorganic course using Miessler and Tarr.  I got a question from a student about hydrogen peroxide, H2O2 that I couldn't answer.  It's in  every textbook at  having C2 symmetry, but you'd expect (from a VSEPR picture) that it would be planar.  Apparently, it's not.  

Does anyone happen to know the reason why ... any good textbook discussion of this that you know of?

Thanks!

Sophia Hayes

Washington University