This game is modeled after the New York Times (NYT) "Connections" game, in which players are presented with 16 words or phrases and the objective is to sort the words into four groups of four words that are all connected in some way. The game can be done by students individually, in small groups, or even together as a whole class. This game aims to help students practice and/or review the major classes of ligands. In the game, students are presented with 16 ligands, all belonging to four different classes.

This game is modeled after the New York Times (NYT) "Connections" game, in which players are presented with 16 words or phrases and the objective is to sort the words into four groups of four words that are all connected in some way. The game can be done by students individually, in small groups, or even together as a whole class. This game aims to help students practice and/or review assigning point groups to molecules. In the game, students will be presented with 16 molecules, all belonging to four different point groups.

This literature discussion was created for my 300-level elective course in bioinorganic chemistry.  Over the course of the semester, we read a series of 3 papers from Sarah L.J. Michel's lab at the University of Maryland's School of Pharmacy. This paper, "Role of Gold in Inflammation and Tristetraprolin Activity" (https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201904837) was the third one we examined. I used it as part of our section on metals in medicine and to discuss additional biochemical/bioinorganic techniques. 

This literature discussion was created for my 300-level elective course in bioinorganic chemistry.  Over the course of the semester, we read a series of 3 papers from Sarah L.J. Michel's lab at the University of Maryland's School of Pharmacy.

In this lab we have two standard introduction labs (LUM and POR) and then a full CURE. This was the second time I ran this CURE (the first was Spring 2024).

The CURE is being published as a multi-institution ACS Symposium Series Chapter in 2026, and the materials from the CURE will be hosted in a collection on VIPEr. 

Once the chapter is published, I will add the link to it in the description. 

In our course sequence, students use VSEPR in general chemistry. Organic chemistry uses hybrid orbitals and pi-bonding. When students get to inorganic chemistry, they are often confused by the two descriptions, especially with a steric number (lone pairs plus bonded atoms) greater than four.

This activity is designed to serve as a bridge between multiple levels and returned to in more than one course.
150 different molecules can be manipulated in JSmol, with options to show multiple bonds, lone pairs, and orbitals suitable for pi-bonding.