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.
This activity is intended for use in a college-level second term general chemistry course, and is designed to engage students in a guided concept development exercise that will help them construct conceptual understanding of how non-volatile solutes impact the boiling point and freezing point of aqueous solvent.
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
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
In fall 2023, Jarad Mason from Harvard University was awarded the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry for his contributions to the fields of phase-change materials, microporous materials, and materials chemistry. In this literature discussion, students will examine his recent paper “Microporous water with high gas solubilities," Nature 2022, 608, 712-718 which is related to that work.
I regularly give an oral exam instead of a written exam in my junior and senior level organometallics seminar course. The course focuses on the primary literature, discussion of advanced topics, and asking questions. A written exam would not evaluate the students' abilities on the important skill development they learned in the class. Besides, I am better able to gauge when a student has no idea about a certain topic, or just needs a little nudge in order for them to demonstrate that they actually understand 95% of it.
The Tonks group has helped to revitalize interest in early metal, especially titanium, organometallic chemistry in recent years. Often his group uses Ti complexes for multi-component coupling, increasingly with masked low-valent Ti(II) as an important intermediate. This paper is more fundamental, exploring a ligand based on ortho-terphenoxide since the meta- and para- derivatives were already known. Along the way, they report some interesting NMR and structural information, and finish with some hydroamination catalysis.
This literature discussion on the Hot Paper communication in Chemistry, A European Journal; highlights the first examples of borepinium and borfluorenium cations whose optical properties can be tuned and also the very first reported example of thermochromism in these cationic species. R. J. Gilliard, Chem. Eur. J. 2019, 25, 12512. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201903348
This course focuses on the chemistry of the elements, including electronic structure, bonding and
molecular structure, ionic solids, coordination compounds, the origins of the elements, and the descriptive
chemistry of the elements. Topics also include inorganic synthesis, materials science, industrial chemistry,
and an introduction to bioinorganic chemistry.
CHEM 4310 is an in-depth review of modern inorganic chemistry. Topics will include symmetry, acids and bases, reduction-oxidation reactions, periodic trends, coordination chemistry, organometallic chemistry, bioinorganic chemistry, and material chemistry. The course will meet for three hours of lecture and three hours of laboratory per week.