Submitted by Hilary Eppley / DePauw University on Tue, 08/22/2017 - 12:57

The leadership team for the Summer 2017 Workshop (Barb, Chip, Shirley, Hilary and Kate) is pleased to announce (just in time for the beginning of the fall semester!) 13 new learning objects that were developed during our “An IONiC Workshop on VIPEr and Literature Discussions” at Franklin & Marshall College in early June. Links to all of the new learning objects can be found here.  In this shorter format workshop (a model for future ones in the upcoming grant!), our 19 participants and 5 leaders developed literature discussions on bonding and solid state based on 4 recent papers (most of which would be appropriate for a Foundations level course) in just 3 days.  Some of the exciting results in the papers included a new Na2He compound and a metal bound SiO2 ligand. Topics covered include VSEPR, Lewis acidity, solid state structure, agostic interactions, and quantum dots.  The workshop group as a whole also revisited Maggie Geselbracht’s classic learning object on five-fold metal-metal bonding in a Cr dimer and created a new version of it with many new questions, learning goals and an answer key!  Check out the list and favorite a couple of them for the upcoming year, and comment on them to offer suggestions and adaptations.