Here is a fun way to learn about inorganic chemistry!  These songs were composed and passed along to me by Tom Mallouk at Penn State with his permission to post here on VIPEr.  I Can't Get No Bragg Diffraction was a joint effort put together one year at a Gordon Research Conference on Solid State Chemistry.  Sorry, no recording!  The tune n-doped, recorded by the Band Edges, covers the electronic structure behind semiconductor devices.  Download the lyrics for both and the mp3 file for n-doped!  There is a

This is a short activity I developed to help my students interpret Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). Students rank unknown compounds from least safe to most safe, and the compounds' identities are revealed. The class discusses other factors to consider in evaluating the safety of an experiment. The "MSDS activity" word document contains a more full description.

This is a Challenge for the beginning of an Inorganic class, to remind students of the basics of Aufbau, etc. Inorganic Challenges are exercises designed to be solved by a small group of students. Some Challenges practice a problem-solving algorithm, some reinforce important concepts, and some involve creativity or games. You can pick and choose Challenges from our Web site to increase active learning in your classroom, and we ask that you contribute creative Challenges of your own to give a head start to teachers at other colleges and universities!

This is a game that gets students interested in point group symmetry, and helps them to see the symmetry in everyday objects. It is a competition in which the groups try to bring in the hardest object to assign. Inorganic Challenges are exercises designed to be solved by a small group of students. Some Challenges practice a problem-solving algorithm, some reinforce important concepts, and some involve creativity or games.

This is just a little worksheet that I use in a General Chemistry course to teach Gibbs Free Energy calculations and the idea of a coupled reaction, while foreshadowing ideas from metallurgy and electrochemistry (sacrificial reductants, entropy-driven smelting, fuels as reductants) for the end of the course when I generally address these.

The reaction chemistry of aqueous copper(II) ions with ammonia is commonly used in both general chemistry and inorganic chemistry texts to illustrate the equilibria of complex ions in solution.  Although the system initially seems simple, further analysis of the chemical species involved shows that it is in fact quite complicated.  First of all, ammonia is a weak base and its basic equilibrium reaction must be taken into account.  Second, although the aquated copper(II) ion is the most prevalent ion in solution before ammonia is added, this species is itself a weak acid.  Third, a series of