The MoleCVUE website contains several items that should be of interest to the VIPEr community, especially the activities.  Each activity is designed to be ready to deploy in lecture, laboratory, or as homework.  There are activities covering all of the major subdisciplines of chemistry (some more than others).  Some activities that might be of particular interest to VIPEr are "Group Theory", "VSEPR", and "Electron Configurations of Atoms and Ions".  All of the activities are written to use WebMO, but could be adapted for other systems.  Most activities are doable with the free or demo versi

This is a literature-based end of semester project.  After a semester of introducing literature in the form of typical literature discussions, this assignment is given to small groups.  It may be easily amended or added to.  Each group is provided with a paper and accompanying questions that are similar to the literature discussions they have done over the semester.  They then must use these guiding questions to assemble a presentation to the class.  The topics chosen and the guiding questions are designed to provide students with a taste of the many areas of inorganic chemistry that are no

This article focuses on a theoretical analysis of K-edge X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) of Fe(CO)₅ in the D_3h and C_4v geometries. For the context of a one semester inorganic chemistry / physical inorganic chemistry course, the authors use computational methods and experimental X-ray techniques to generate the XANES spectra of two different geometries of Fe(CO)₅. Densities of states are used to show overlap between specific orbitals (Fe p with C p), indicating pi-backbonding.

This LO was written by the IONiC Leadership Council to celebrate Steve Koch as the recipient of the 2024 ACS Award for Distinguished Service in Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry. Steve has been a major supporter of the IONiC community since its inception. This LO is based on the article New Members of the Class of [Fe(CN)_x(CO)_y] Compounds. published in Inorganic Chemistry (DOI: 10.1021/ic015604y).

This is an in class activity that I just used to replace a lecture! After students have the basic ideas of how to perform symmetry operations and put molecules in point groups, I like to reflect on the idea of a 'mathematical group' and what that means in terms of symmetry and group theory in inorganic chemistry.

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.