Energy Nuggets: Engineering Viruses to Build a Better Battery

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Mon, 07/06/2009 - 15:29
Description
This literature discussion activity is one of a series of “Energy Nuggets,” small curricular units designed to illustrate: The Role of Inorganic Chemistry in the Global Challenge for Clean Energy Production, Storage, and Use.

Energy Nuggets: MOF’s for CO2 Sequestration

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Thu, 06/04/2009 - 03:50
Description
This literature discussion activity is one of a series of “Energy Nuggets,” small curricular units designed to illustrate: The Role of Inorganic Chemistry in the Global Challenge for Clean Energy Production, Storage, and Use.

Materials Chemistry: UW MRSEC Library of Slide Shows for Class Presentations

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 17:43
Description

The Interdisciplinary Education Group at the University of Wisconsin Madison Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) has a fabulous website with a wide variety of great resources for teaching about materials and the nanoworld at all levels.  A favorite "corner" of this website that I refer to a lot in my own teaching is the library of so-called Resource Slides on a variety of topics.  These Resource Slides are divided up into 36 topical Slide Shows and include wonderful graphics to use in class presentations.   Slide Shows include:

Inorganic Challenges

Submitted by Patrick Holland / Yale University on Tue, 03/10/2009 - 15:39
Description

The Interactive Inorganic Challenge Forum is a resource for inorganic chemistry teachers who want to incorporate team learning questions (“Challenges”) into an upper level undergraduate inorganic course. Through this site, teachers can exchange their ideas with others who have used inorganic chemistry Challenges. As a result, students benefit from field-tested group questions.

Contemporary Inorganic Chemists

Submitted by Betsy Jamieson / Smith College on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 11:59
Description
This is an assignment I use to give students a sense of what kinds of problems real life, contemporary inorganic chemists work on.  I start out by having them find 2 contemporary inorganic chemists.  They give a 15-20 min presentation on their two chemists that gives a general overview of their research projects.  Once everyone has done their general presentation, I have students choose a specific journal article by one of their chemists to present in class.  I usually have this assignment run throughout the semester, with the general presentations taking place in the first half of the semeste

House: Inorganic Chemistry

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 15:35
Description

House (Inorganic chemistry):  The book is divided into 5 parts:  first, an introductory section on atomic structure, symmetry, and bonding; second, ionic bonding and solids; third, acids, bases and nonaqueous solvents; fourth, descriptive chemistry; and fifth, coordination chemistry.  The first three sections are short, 2-4 chapters each, while the descriptive section (five chapters) and coordination chemistry section (seven chapters covering ligand field theory, spectroscopy, synthesis and reaction chemistry, organometallics, and bioinorganic chemistry.) are longer.  Each chapter includes

Inorganic Chemistry Just Makes You Want to Sing!

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Sat, 12/27/2008 - 19:35
Description

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

Putting electrochemistry to use: Design of new lithium-ion battery anodes

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Fri, 11/28/2008 - 20:55
Description
This learning object focuses on a discussion of a recent paper that highlights the application of electrochemistry in inorganic materials chemistry: “Direct Electrodeposition of Cu2Sb for Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes” by James M. Mosby and Amy L. Prieto, J. Am. Chem. Soc.

Hands-On Experience with Close Packing

Submitted by Patrick Holland / Yale University on Mon, 07/28/2008 - 10:19
Description
This is a really fun Challenge where student use two colors of marbles to simulate close packing. It culminates in them creating the face-centered cube "hidden" in hexagonal close packing.