In-class exercise that helps students learn how to use structural data and other experimental methods to assign structure. Using chemical intuition, students will rationalize the structures of metal complexes that differ by protonation states.

A guided inquiry activity where students use group theory and character tables to practice determining reducible representations for all atoms and the individual bonds (like CO stretches).  The students then reduce the representation, determine which are vibrational modes, and then determine which are IR active using the character table.  For the second portion, they practice using this approach to differentiate between two metal isomers.

This is a short critical thinking exercise that I use to assess whether my students have understood where the d orbital splitting in Octahedral and Tetrahedral geometry  comes from.  I do it at the beginning of the class after we discuss CFT/LFT in Oh and Td compounds. 

This is a truly hands-on activity in which students manipulate paper cutouts of carbon atomic orbitals and oxygen group orbitals to identify combinations with identical symmetry and build the carbon dioxide molecular orbital diagram. The activity pairs well with the treatment of MO theory in Miessler, Fischer, and Tarr, Chapter 5. An optional computational modeling component can be added at the end.