The students prepare a short proposal outlining their desired target and why they want to make it. Chemicals are ordered, and during the last 3-4 weeks of the semester, the students carry out their synthesis. The writeup is as a paper submtited to the journal Inorganic Chemistry using the template from the journal web page.
After several days of lecturing on the topic of polyatomic molecular orbital diagrams, students break into small groups of 3-4 and form LGO’s that can be used to interact with a central atom to form a Molecular Orbital (MO) diagram. This assignment is part of a larger 4-5 week unit on MO theory.
This is an assignment designed to help students begin to reflect on professional ethics of scientific practice. I have used this in a freshman and a senior seminar after 2-3 days of discussion of what professional ethics is and how one goes about choosing a course of action in an ethical dilemma. I use:
I wanted a modern organometallic experiment showing the utility of Pd for coupling reactions. Students attempted a variety of reaction conditions during the spring of 2007 and 2008. Eventually, we were able to get the reaction to work with a variety of primary amines (linear, cyclohexylamine) and t-butylamine. Yields are not great (40-80%) and this experiment needs some optimization. However, products were observed by GC-MS and NMR.
This is G. N.
Relative metal-hydrogen, -oxygen, -nitrogen, and -carbon bond strengths for organoruthenium and organoplatinum compounds; equilibrium studies of Cp*(PMe3)2RuX and (DPPE)MePtX systems
Henry E. Bryndza, Lawrence K. Fong, Rocco A. Paciello, Wilson Tam, John E. Bercaw
J. Am. Chem. Soc.; 1987 ; 109(5); 1444-1456.
Students are sent to find (and take pictures) of items in various point groups around campus. Generally, I give them a list of possible offices (though they are free to go to other places) and point groups (some hard) and the following ground rules:
This assignment takes students through the process of learning how to find and read a paper from the primary literature, specifically to get experimental details (synthesis, characterization). It also focuses on how to use a variety of chemical information resources. It could be combined with the questions from Chemical Information Assignment to create a longer assignment.