Two excellent video presentations on symmetry. The Ted Talk by Marcus du Sautoy is an excellent introduction to the concept of symmetry and systematically describing it. In "Impossible Crystals" Nobel Laureate and physicist Paul Steinhardt discusses the creation of "Impossible crystals": quasi-crystals with five-fold symmetry previously believed impossible.
Brief introduction to d-orbital splitting, Russell-Saunders coupling, and application to UV-Vis spectroscopy using Tanabe-Sugano diagrams
This exercise was developed to help students predict bonding between s,p and d atomic orbitals.
A literature discussion based on an interesting paper from Bernhard and Albrecht about a catalytic water oxidation promoted by irdium complexes featuring abnormal/mesoionic NHC ligands.
I used this in an upper-level Organometallics course after discussing NHC ligands in class.
Students construct computer models of two transition metal complexes, solve their electronic structures, and inspect the resulting d-type molecular orbitals to identify which are non-bonding, sigma* antibonding, or pi* antibonding. After constructing a molecular orbital diagram, they determine which of the two complexes is likely to absorb light at a longer wavelength.
During my junior/senior level inorganic course, we did several guided literature discussions over the course of the semester where the students read papers and answered a series of questions based on them (some from this site!). As part of my take home final exam, I gave the students an open choice literature analysis question where they had the chance to integrate topics from the semester into their interpretation of a recent paper of their own choice from Inorganic Chemistry, this time with limited guidance.
I developed this laboratory experiment for our instrumental analysis class. The course is taken by junior and senior chemistry majors, who for the most part have had one inorganic chemistry course and some physical chemistry. The laboratory is operationally very simple and has students record the UV-vis spectra of transition metal sulfate salts in water using volumetric technique. They record the molar absorptivities for each peak and use this data to determine the number of waters of hydration for each salt by comparing with literature absorptivity values.
This in-class activity explores the electronic structure and spectroscopy of the square-planar iron(II) sites in the mineral gillespite through a crystal field theory approach. This activity is designed for an advanced inorganic chemistry course where group theory and more advanced topics in ligand field theory are taught. The activity is based on the work detailed in the paper: Burn, R. G.; Clark, M. G.; Stone, A. J. Inorg.
This activity is meant to teach students an MO theory interpretation of hypervalency that goes beyond the simple (and somewhat unsatisfying) explanation that atoms that are in the third row and below use d-orbitals for bonding in addition to s- and p-orbitals. Specifically, students will be learning how to construct MO diagrams for multicenter bonding schemes (i.e., 3c4e).
This in-class activity requires that the students read an article in The Atlantic about an interesting (and modern) case of the plague. The article provides a great platform to showcase the Inorganic side of broad societal themes like evolutionary biology, environmental and hereditary influences on disease, and the collaboration between biology, medicine, and history. The article itself contains little chemistry, but can be used to guide students into learning about iron in bioinorganic chemistry.
Accompanying article found here: