In this activity, Introductory Chemistry students are given two possible structures of sulfur dioxide, and based on an assessment of given vibrational modes, they determine which of the modes are IR active (and thus, whether the molecule is a greenhouse gas). They compare their assessment to experimental IR absorption peaks, and the students decide which structure is valid.
This in-class activity is designed to give general chemistry students practice with drawing Lewis structures. Small groups of 3-5 students compete for points by creating hypothetical molecules that meet criteria (numbers of elements and atoms) assigned by the professor. Beginning with simple molecules, the basic challenge format calls for increasingly complex criteria in successive rounds of competition. One optional variation also allows student groups to challenge each other for bonus points.
This is just a cool little website I just happened to stumble upon today while looking for something else at the RSC site. It comes from China, and it is pretty!
Hilary first higlighted this resource as a news item before we had a web resource category. I'd like to bring it back to people's attention as a web resource because of its value.
In the 2013 Inorganic Curriculum Survey, respondents were asked about the resources they used when they teach inorganic chemistry. About 20% of respondents selected "other" and provided information about these resources. A number of people mentioned specific websites. This collection consists of the websites submitted in the survey.
Students are asked to find a coordination complex in the recent literature and analyze its structure. This homework or in-class activity is a great way for the instructor to crowd source the discovery of interesting new complexes to use as material in future exams.
This is a collection of LOs that I used to teach a junior-senior seminar course on organometallics during Fall 2014 at Harvey Mudd College.
In this exercise, students are introduced to Mercury, a program for visualizing and analyzing crystal structure data. Students are guided through opening the program for the first time and viewing a structure from the Teaching Subset, a selection of structures from the Cambridge Crystallographic Database (CSD). Activites include changing the representation of the complex, moving the structure around the window, accessing information about the structure, and measuring bond lengths and angles within the structure.
I use this literature discussion in my second year inorganic class as a follow-up to a lab experiment where students synthesize Werner complexes and then (with much guidance) analyze their IR spectra using symmetry and group theory arguments. This paper provides an excellent example of how cobalt complexes are used in modern applications, and serves as a bridge to bioinorganic chemistry, which is a central feature later in the course.