Last week, I found out that the a music professor at my institution loves the periodic table as much as an inorganic chemist and has put together two songs about the periodic table (before Livermorium and Flerovium were named).

I'm looking for some last minute help. My inorganic class is larger than the room where I normally teach in so I've been moved to a larger room with no periodic table! 

Do you teach nuclear chemistry in your inorganic course?  We offer a 1-semester junior-level inorganic class.  We touch on nuclear chemistry at the end of General Chemistry II, but really do not go much in depth.  Therefore, I have always felt some obligation to cover a bit more in inorganic (basically a slightly expanded version of what is found in Miessler & Tarr).  That said, I could really use that day back, so convince me I don't need to cover it.  :)  

Our department is considering re-formatting general chemistry to use an atoms first approach.  We have seen how students struggle with stoichiometry / dimensional analysis, and we are wondering if starting off the first semester with atomic structure and bonding concepts would help students settle in more before they hit the more math-y topics. 

Does anyone have any experience to share?  Favorite textbooks?  Advice?  We are not likely to make the leap unless we're better informed.  (I have found one recent J. Chem. Ed. article on the topic.)

Hi All,

Our Graduate Women in Science Chapter is starting to brainstorm for our spring Girl Scout Workshop.  I was wondering if anyone has any good chemistry related activities that they have used for this sort of thing.  Any ideas would be welcome and greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Angela Jovanovic-Bischof

Does anyone have any cool GenChem-my Inoroganicky labs I might adapt and implement?  I really want to change up our stale lab sequence.  I would especially be interested in labs in development.  I have 10 sections of 20 students each this semester, and would be happy to share assessment data so that you could get your experiment published.

S.

I'm putting the finishing touches on a web-based activity created to explore isomerization in octahedral complexes.  It is based on the discussion in Miessler, Fischer and Tarr.  I will probably submit the activity to VIPEr in due course, but I was hoping to get a little bit of feedback, especially from those who are not accustomed to using Mathematica.

VIPEr Folks,

This is an AWESOME read. Check out the link.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/07/31…

S

Hello,

I would be grateful to hear from college programs that teach less than one full year of General Chemistry.  At present, we teach 3 quarters of General Chemistry (Zumdahl and Zumdahl), a one quarter Fundamental Inorganic Chemistry (Rayner-Canham and Overton) and a one quarter Advanced Inorganic Chemistry (Shriver and Atkins).

We are exploring the possibility of shortening our general chemistry sequence to 2 quarters and then combining the topics usually covered in the third quarter into Fundamental Inorganic Chemistry course and other courses.