Letters of recommendation

Submitted by Lee Park / Williams College on Sat, 06/25/2011 - 13:55
Description

This is a document that I hand out to every student I have, outlining what I

Periodic trends in atomic size and electronegativity based on MO calculations

Submitted by Rob Scarrow / Haverford College on Sat, 06/25/2011 - 13:38
Description

In Haverford College's course Chem 111:Structure and Bonding, we have included a workshop exercise that guides students through their first experience using electronic structure calculations.  We use the WebMO interface along with Gaussian03, but the exercise could be adapted for other electronic structure programs. The general structure of the exercise is as follows:

Macroscopic, particle and symbolic representations of aqueous reactions

Submitted by Kristen Murphy / University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Sat, 06/25/2011 - 13:32
Description

Students in the courses I teach (primarily general chemistry) have struggled with understanding the three representations of matter: macroscopic, particle, and symbolic. This is particularly evident when these representations extend into reactions. Additionally, students struggle with understanding basic concepts of aqueous solutions and, by extension, reactions in aqueous solution. This activity is designed to help the students recognize different types of representations and then generate these for simple systems.

Geochronology: radiocarbon dating

Submitted by mike knapp / UMASS on Sat, 06/25/2011 - 10:59
Description

This is written for a freshman seminar course, "Nuclear Chemistry and Medicine," open to all majors.  It meets once per week for one hour, and is meant to facilitate the transition into college for first-year students by providing an informal educational experience. It should be adaptable to a lecture-format course, and I will try to do this for my Junior-year Inorganic Chemistry. 

The Extremely Explosive Carbonyl Diazide Molecule

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 17:03
Description

This Lewis structure and VSEPR problem is based on a paper from Inorganic Chemistry in 2010 reporting the crystal structure of the carbonyl diazide molecule.  This relatively simple molecule provides an interesting application of the predictive powers of Lewis structures and VSEPR theory to molecular structure, backed up by experimental data on bond distances and bond angles.  Before tackling carbonyl diazide, the students warm up by considering the structures of hydrogen azide and the isolated azide ion.  The reference to the original paper is

Communication-style lab reports

Submitted by Rebecca M. Jones / George Mason University on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 15:52
Description

For the past four years, I have required my inorganic students to write short 3-page formal lab reports in the form of communication to the Journal of the American Chemical Society.  This exercise has relieved some of the stress on my students who are writing reports of other science classes and simplified my grading.  Using Jeffrey Kovac's Writing Across the Chemistry Curriculum: An Instructor's Handbook as a starting point, I have developed a rubric to provide qualitative feedback to the stu

news article on lanthanide magnets

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 11:40
Description
I found this interesting article on the many uses of lanthanide magnets.  Thought I'd share!

A really neat periodic table

Submitted by John Gilje / James Madison University on Fri, 11/12/2010 - 09:20
Description

A really neat interactive periodic table

Introducing Inorganic Chemistry - First Day Activities

Submitted by Barbara Reisner / James Madison University on Tue, 08/31/2010 - 15:53
Description

Every time I teach inorganic, I always ask myself the question: “What’s the best way to motivate the course and get the students excited?” A long time ago, I decided it’s important to start with some music. (Until last year, Tom Lehrer’s The Elements was my favorite. As a TMBG fan, I’ve swiched to Meet the Elements.)

Limiting Reagent

Submitted by Marites (Tess) Guinoo / University of St. Thomas on Wed, 08/04/2010 - 17:16
Description

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