Battery in class activity

Submitted by Sheila Smith / University of Michigan- Dearborn on Wed, 05/26/2010 - 13:10
Description

This is an in-class exercise to be used at the end of General Chemistry (II).  I use it as a capstone exercise at the end of my second semester genchem course, but it would also make an excellent introductory review exercise at the beginning of a junior level inorganic course.  It provides an excellent review of topics from the entire semester (electrochemistry, acid-base, thermodynamics, colligative properties, solution chemistry and calculations) and shows how they are inter-related in a real world application (a car battery).

Introduction to the Synthesis and Properties of Nanoparticles

Submitted by Brian Johnson / St. John's University/College of St. Benedict on Fri, 04/30/2010 - 09:59
Description

This activity leads students through the synthesis of compound nanoparticles and examines how key physical properties such as band gap vary with particle size.  Prior to doing this, students should have some exposure to the structure of solids, band theory, and band gap as a periodic property (see, for example, Lisensky, et al. J Chem.

Periodic Table of Haiku

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Thu, 03/18/2010 - 16:45
Description

This is a great website that was forwarded to me by a friend.  Broaden students' scientific communication skills by condensing the descriptive chemistry of an element down to a haiku.

Student-Led Organometallics

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Mon, 01/11/2010 - 19:42
Description

I teach my organometallics course, a junior/senior level half-course, entirely as student-led presentations of the primary literature.  In the past, the course was populated almost entirely with seniors who had already taken a one-semester advanced inorganic course.  This past year, I taught it to juniors and seniors, and the juniors had not taken inorganic yet.  A description of the course first appeared in J. Chem. Educ. in 2007 (link below).  This VIPEr learning object is an update of the original paper based on my experience over the past two years.

Sol-Gel Silica: Nanoarchitectures of Being and Nothingness

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 16:59
Description

In this lab experiment, students use sol-gel chemistry to prepare silica gel monoliths from tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS).  Carrying out the hydrolysis and condensation under acid-catalyzed vs.

Energy Nuggets: MOF’s for CO2 Sequestration

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Thu, 06/04/2009 - 03:50
Description
This literature discussion activity is one of a series of “Energy Nuggets,” small curricular units designed to illustrate: The Role of Inorganic Chemistry in the Global Challenge for Clean Energy Production, Storage, and Use.

Materials Chemistry: UW MRSEC Library of Slide Shows for Class Presentations

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 17:43
Description

The Interdisciplinary Education Group at the University of Wisconsin Madison Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) has a fabulous website with a wide variety of great resources for teaching about materials and the nanoworld at all levels.  A favorite "corner" of this website that I refer to a lot in my own teaching is the library of so-called Resource Slides on a variety of topics.  These Resource Slides are divided up into 36 topical Slide Shows and include wonderful graphics to use in class presentations.   Slide Shows include:

Literature Searching: Understanding Handbooks

Submitted by Meris / James Madison University on Mon, 03/09/2009 - 09:44
Description

To allow students to become familiar with the structure of chemical literature and provide them with an understanding of several types of basic handbooks.

Interactive Spreadsheets for Inorganic Chemistry

Submitted by Lori Watson / Earlham College on Sun, 03/08/2009 - 15:28
Description

This web site contains a number of interactive spreadsheets, most of which are applicable to inorganic chemistry (or a physical chemistry class that uses inorganic examples).  Here's the list of the most relevant for most inorganic classes:

 

ABC kinetics - interactively plot concentration versus reaction extent for A, B and C in A -> B -> C by varying k values

House: Inorganic Chemistry

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 15:35
Description

House (Inorganic chemistry):  The book is divided into 5 parts:  first, an introductory section on atomic structure, symmetry, and bonding; second, ionic bonding and solids; third, acids, bases and nonaqueous solvents; fourth, descriptive chemistry; and fifth, coordination chemistry.  The first three sections are short, 2-4 chapters each, while the descriptive section (five chapters) and coordination chemistry section (seven chapters covering ligand field theory, spectroscopy, synthesis and reaction chemistry, organometallics, and bioinorganic chemistry.) are longer.  Each chapter includes