SLiThErs - Supporting Learning with Interactive Teaching: a Hosted, Engaging Roundtable

A collection of all of the IONiC VIPEr SLiThErs (Supporting Learning with Interactive Teaching: a Hosted, Engaging Roundtable). These events are short presentations on a topic followed by a period of discussion between the presenter and live participants. Each of these events is recorded and posted to the IONiC VIPEr YouTube Channel.

Chip Nataro / Lafayette College Thu, 12/17/2020 - 14:18

Coordination Bonding with Main Group Metals(?)

Submitted by A. M. Christianson / Bellarmine University on Wed, 12/11/2024 - 10:19
Description

This Literature Discussion considers the synthesis of the first carbene-bismuthinidene complex by Gilliard and coworkers in 2019. This molecule serves as an illustration of different bonding models, as it can be described by multiple resonance structures invoking fully covalent, zwitterionic, and coordinate/dative bonding forms. Students analyze these resonance structures and their geometrical implications, then compare to the experimental structural evidence to come to a conclusion about which bonding model(s) best describe this molecule!

Moleculuar Computation and Visualization in Undergraduate Education (MoleCVUE)

Submitted by Kevin Range / Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania on Fri, 08/09/2024 - 13:01
Description

The MoleCVUE website contains several items that should be of interest to the VIPEr community, especially the activities.  Each activity is designed to be ready to deploy in lecture, laboratory, or as homework.  There are activities covering all of the major subdisciplines of chemistry (some more than others).  Some activities that might be of particular interest to VIPEr are "Group Theory", "VSEPR", and "Electron Configurations of Atoms and Ions".  All of the activities are written to use WebMO, but could be adapted for other systems.  Most activities are doable with the free or demo versi

Literature Discussion Group Project
Description

This is a literature-based end of semester project.  After a semester of introducing literature in the form of typical literature discussions, this assignment is given to small groups.  It may be easily amended or added to.  Each group is provided with a paper and accompanying questions that are similar to the literature discussions they have done over the semester.  They then must use these guiding questions to assemble a presentation to the class.  The topics chosen and the guiding questions are designed to provide students with a taste of the many areas of inorganic chemistry that are no

Wes Farrell / United States Naval Academy Mon, 08/05/2024 - 14:23

Theoretical Analysis of Fe K-edge XANES on Iron Pentacarbonyl

Submitted by Prajay Patel / University of Dallas on Tue, 04/30/2024 - 15:01
Description

This article focuses on a theoretical analysis of K-edge X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) of Fe(CO)5 in the D3h and C4v geometries. For the context of a one semester inorganic chemistry / physical inorganic chemistry course, the authors use computational methods and experimental X-ray techniques to generate the XANES spectra of two different geometries of Fe(CO)5. Densities of states are used to show overlap between specific orbitals (Fe p with C p), indicating pi-backbonding.

Orca Computational Chemistry Tutorials (Neese)
Description

Frank Neese was honored with the 2024 ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry for outstanding accomplishments in combining high-level theory with experiment to obtain insight into the properties and reactivities of transition-metal complexes and metalloenzymes. 

His major contributions to the field have been through the development and dissemination of his free computational modeling software program ORCA, which is used by thousands of researchers across the fields of inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry.

Amanda Reig / Ursinus College Thu, 04/04/2024 - 13:53
The elusive tetrabenzylthorium compound (Bart)
Description

This literature discussion learning object describes the isolation and structure of tetrabenzylthorium, a molecule that was synthesized many years ago but was never thoroughly characterized.

Joanne Stewart / Hope College Thu, 03/14/2024 - 20:09

New Members of the Class of [Fe(CN)x(CO)y] Compounds (Koch)

Submitted by Barbara Reisner / James Madison University on Mon, 03/11/2024 - 17:23
Description

This LO was written by the IONiC Leadership Council to celebrate Steve Koch as the recipient of the 2024 ACS Award for Distinguished Service in Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry. Steve has been a major supporter of the IONiC community since its inception. This LO is based on the article New Members of the Class of [Fe(CN)x(CO)y] Compounds. published in Inorganic Chemistry (DOI: 10.1021/ic015604y).

Collaborative Point Group "Escape Room" Competition

Submitted by Joya Cooley / California State University, Fullerton on Tue, 08/08/2023 - 19:29
Description

This is a digital "escape room" where students determine point groups of molecules and answer follow-up questions to determine four digits. The four digits can be used to unlock a physical lockbox which is brought to class with small prizes inside.

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