I am currently in the trenches grading many general chemistry and inorganic lab reports.  I wonder what strategies you use to teach and grade reports.  I provide students with detailed guidelines and a grading rubric.  They seem to have no problem following the format but they still struggle with presenting a logical analysis of their results that lead them to a viable conclusion.

I am on sabbatical leave this year at University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. It's wonderful!

Several chemistry faculty here are developing a new integrated organic/inorganic course for undergraduates. I think the students will have had some organic before they take this course and a very small amount of inorganic. I was just wondering if anyone is aware of any courses like this, either at the introductory or the more advanced level.

I had an extended conversation with a colleague over the weekend about what he (as a non-solid state chemist) should convey to students about solids.  Happily, this conversation was made all the more pleasant by L'énorme (GIANT cone of Belgian fries) and some good beer.  Here's what I think are the 7 things that students should know about solids coming out of an inorganic chemistry course.  Maybe you don't have time or expertise do all 7, but some is better than none.

I was wondering how many folks include basic coordination chemistry in their General Chemistry course?  Perhaps I will put together a poll on this topic.  I used to teach coordination chemistry in Gen Chem, but it has since been removed in favor of more organic chemistry (eek!) that is more relevant for our contextual themes for the fall semester.  Since I teach a 200-level (2nd year) inorganic course, I do not miss it too much in Gen Chem.  I know that I will still have a chance to sink early inorganic hooks into our students.  But it does mean that some of our students, most notably

I have in my notes from 9 years ago, this handy equation for prediction of pKa's for oxyacids.  I was using Huheey at the time, and the equation isn't there.  In fact, I can't find it ANYWHERE.  I am certain that I did not develop this equation.... Does anyone recognize it?  Where is it from?  And which electronegativity values does it use?

pKa ~ 10.5 -5n - (chi)X

for

(HO)mX(O)n;  chi is the electronegativity of the central atom X, n is the number of oxos.

OK, so we all love the homonuclear diatomics, and how the 2p sigma is *below* the 2p pi for O2 and F2, almost equal at N2, and above 2p pi for C2, B2, etc.

 CO looks a lot like N2, but it's asymmetric...the 2p sigma is the HOMO. Disturbingly, the gap seems to be *larger* than in N2...why is that?!? Being isoelectronic, it seems like it should be about the same, but there should be *more* contribution from the oxygen orbitals in the *bonding* orbitals since O is more electronegative than C.