This is a digital "escape room" where students determine point groups of molecules and answer follow-up questions to determine four digits. The four digits can be used to unlock a physical lockbox which is brought to class with small prizes inside.
The idea of providing experiential learning experiences in lecture sections of 150+ students can seem impossible. While more traditional internships or field work may be out of reach with these enrollments, less traditional, but still impactful options exist. We will discuss the general idea of experiential learning and provide some examples of how we have incorporated this idea into our general and inorganic courses, addressing both content and the course structure and support that can be helpful.
This literature discussion on the Hot Paper communication in Chemistry, A European Journal; highlights the first examples of borepinium and borfluorenium cations whose optical properties can be tuned and also the very first reported example of thermochromism in these cationic species. R. J. Gilliard, Chem. Eur. J. 2019, 25, 12512. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201903348
This is a list of all of the learning objects developed in association with the 2023 content building workshop. Prof. Robert Gilliard was the featured speaker for this workshop, so most of the LOs will focus on his work.
This is a hands-on introduction to molecular symmetry and point groups. Students are not expected to have any exposure to molecular symmetry before this lab. Students work in pairs to identify symmetry elements in molecules and assign molecules to appropriate point groups.
In this activity, students will collectively build molecular orbitals for homonuclear diatomic molecules using balloons as models for atomic orbitals. This activity gets students up and moving and involved in the building of an MO diagram and allows for 3-D visualization of the core concepts of building molecular orbitals from atomic orbitals.
Students perform weekly laboratory experiments to explore and apply concepts covered in the lecture
component of the course.
This course focuses on the chemistry of the elements, including electronic structure, bonding and
molecular structure, ionic solids, coordination compounds, the origins of the elements, and the descriptive
chemistry of the elements. Topics also include inorganic synthesis, materials science, industrial chemistry,
and an introduction to bioinorganic chemistry.
Materials Chemistry will explore many of the fundamental relationships between a material’s chemical structure and the subsequent interesting and useful properties that result. In order for advances in electronic, magnetic, optical, and other niche applications to be made, an understanding of the structure-property relationship in these materials is crucial. This course will emphasize inorganic systems, and topics will include descriptions of various modern inorganic solid-s