This POGIL based activity is intended to review general chemistry concepts of atomic structure and to further those concepts with additional attention to d orbitals and radial distribution graphs. The primary model in the activity is The Orbitron website (https://winter.group.shef.ac.uk/orbitron/) with students examining the isosurface and radial distributions for a variety of orbitals.
One thousand interactive organometallic and coordination complexes have been selected and prepared for practice and discovery in electron counting problems. The structures can be displayed and manipulated without requiring software installation using a web browser with JavaScript and JSmol.
Dr. Rebecca Jones from Geoge Mason University presented and led a discussion on peer review in chemistry. The Youtube Video is shown below and linked as well.
A sampling of the peer-reviewed literature describing the use of educational games in the undergraduate chemistry classroom. Given that well over 200 publications exist on this topic, this is intended to whet one's appetite for chemistry games rather than be an exhaustive list.
Descriptive chemistry of the main group elements with some emphasis on the non-metals. Transition metal compounds: aspects of bonding, spectra, and reactivity; complexes of n-acceptor ligands; organometallic compounds and their role in catalysis; metals in biological systems; preparative, analytical, and instrumental techniques.
This In-Class Activity is meant to follow up discussions of ligand field theory toward the end of MO theory including the effects of sigma donors, pi donors, and pi acceptors, and how it relates to absorption spectra and observed color of some transition metal complexes. Students have learned crystal field theory and the effects of geometry/symmetry on ∆, then we extend to LFT and how the chemistries of different ligands affect ∆.
This Lattice Structures Visualizer is useful to see simple cubic, body-centered cubic, face-centered cubic, NaCl, CaF2, and hcp lattice structures. You can add atoms/ions layer by layer, break them apart into individual unit cells, and perform other modifications to better observe the structures without physical models. I use this routinely in my general and inorganic chemistry classes.
The second cohort of VIPEr fellows pulled together learning objects that they've used and liked or want to try the next time they teach their inorganic courses.
We have developed a tabletop game to help students get comfortable with symmetry adapted linear combinations of orbitals (SALCs), a conceptual model used to understand bonding in molecular orbital theory. We have found that students often get anxious about SALCs and miss not only the visual connections to symmetry, but also the fun! This LO includes information about the game, files you can use to print your own copy as well as a link in case you want to purchase a copy, and an example of how it might be incorporated into the classroom.
This collection accompanies the IONiC VIPEr nanoCHAt video series NeWBiEs, recorded in Spring 2022. This series is comprised of weekly conversations with two IONiC members, Wes Farrell and Shirley Lin from the US Naval Academy, as they taught a foundation-level inorganic chemistry course for the first time. The LOs discussed in the videos are included in this collection.