This is an in-class assignment designed to help students integrate their understanding of periodic trends and materials properties. Using the color of alum crystals as an example of octahedral coordination chemistry, students use their knowledge of electronic structure and periodic trends to predict which of the isomorphous alum crystals will be colored, and to qualtitatively rank the degree of crystal field splitting in a family of alum crystals.

This is the second part of a two-day class discussion on molecular and inorganic spectroscopy. In this activity, upper level students learn about spectroscopic tecniques used in inorganic chemistry and then devise an experiment to follow the progress of a hypothetical reaction. The activity also prepares students for the inorganic laboratory "Linkage isomerism of nitrogen dioxide" in which infrared spectroscopy is used to monitor changes to the N-O vibrational stretch upon coordination to a metal.

This learning object focuses on a recent publication (Acta Crystallographia 2014, C70, 260 -266) by the Collins research group in the Department of Chemistry at The College of Wooster.  Specifically, the paper evaluates the coordination diversity of a N-donor ligand, 2-phenyl-1,10-phenanthroline(pnp) with three new pnp-metal complexes containing Au(III), Cu(II), and Pd(II) metal centers.

A guided-inquiry activity for the interactive PhET simuation "Molecules and Light" was created to introduce upper-level inorganic laboratory students to inorganic spectroscopy. The activity included here is the first part of a two-day discussion. This activity instructs students to use the PhET simulation "Molecules and Light" to explore how various molecules interact with different energies of electromagnetic radiation (microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet). This activity can also be used in a general chemistry setting as the topics discussed are very basic.

This in-class activity walks students through the preparation of a molecular-orbital diagram for methane in a square-planar environment.  The students generate ligand-group orbitals (LGOs) for the set of 4 H(1s) orbitals and then interact these with carbon, ultimately finding that such a geometry is strongly disfavored because it does not maximize H/C bonding and leaves a lone pair on C.