In this activity, a pair of students are show an object or molecule and are asked to determine the point group before their competitor.

Students work in groups to identify relevant steps and intermediates in 3 catalytic cycles, all the while considering bonding (and electron counting) factors.  Following assignment of these steps and intermediate species, the students consider several questions related to catalysis more broadly, particularly the role of each reagent, how to speed up or slow down specific steps, and the importance of regiospecificity in certain steps.

The following is a simple in-class “demonstration” that I use to segue between d to d and charge transfer transitions.  After teaching about d to d transitions and Tanabe-Sugano Diagrams, I show my students three solutions that I have put in large test tubes before class. The three solutions I place in the test tubes are:

a.  10 ml of 0.1M Co(H₂O)₆²⁺

b.  10 ml of 0.1M Cu(H₂O)₆²⁺

c.  10 ml of a freshly prepared 0.1 M KMnO₄ solution

A set of questions to be used in General or Introductory Inorganic Chemistry as a review or “quiz” of shapes and polarities.

This activity was created as part of a primer on cyclic voltammetry for the 2015 TUES workshop. The activity is designed to have one person represent the potential and several other people represent the molecules in solution. By simply scanning (walking through the line of people) and shaking hands, several simple mechanisms can be illustrated. The use of a joy buzzer with the first hand shake is highly encouraged, but not at all necessary.