ChemTube3D is a website maintained by the University of Liverpool that has interactive 3D animations ans structures. The content is broken up into several areas:
There is a lot of information on the site, and the information could be used in many courses. The areas that I find most useful in my sophomore-level inorganic chemistry course.
The periodic table video website was developed by a group from the University of Nottingham. In addition to the link to the website there a link to a publication in Science on the website is included below. This is a great website that has a periodic table hyperlinked by element to a you tube video on that particular element. On any given element video you see a mixture of general properties of the element (lecture) and an experiment that shows the element. In addition, a new subheading has been added at the top for molecular videos where (a somewhat random yet interesting) list of mole
For many years I have resisted using clickers, mainly because at our university there is no standard universal clicker. I wanted to keep student costs as low as possible but also desired the type of live feedback during a lecture that clicker questions can provide. In both my general chem. (200-300 students) and upper division courses (50-75 students), I now pass out 4 or 5 colored notecards on the first day of class and make sure everyone has one of each color.
A very simple lab synthesis that allows the student to carry out a coordination reaction and then look at the NMR and IR spectra. I use this as a first lab to introduce them to using the NMR and IR. If students work through the spectroscopy tutorial they should be able to explain the IR and NMR spectra.
A really nice site with several lattice structures indexed by several methods, and new structures are continuously being added. I find it useful for getting images for problems sets and exams.
These 6 slides introduce the nomenclature used to describe the stereochemistry of various polypropylenes (PPs) that can be synthesized by metallocene-catalyzed polymerizations. Although PP is the specific polymer discussed, the nomenclature applies to other alpha-olefin polymerizations.
This is a lab that gives students a chance to use a catalyst to perform "green" chemistry. Specifically, they will make one of the new generation of palladium cross-coupling catalysts called PEPPSI, which is a highly active, water soluble catalyst and use it in a Suzuki coupling reaction. Student groups of 2 or 3 will synthesize an NHC ligand, incorporate it into a metal compound, and then perform catalysis in an aqueous microwave reaction using a variety of different reaction conditions in order to determine the optimal catalytic system.
This assignment is intended as an introduction to searching the chemical literature to identify an article on specific topic (in this case a specific metal within a specified time range). Once they have located their articles, they are expected to name a metal complex and give the oxidation state, d electron count, and geometry.
As a non-bioinorganic chemist, I am always looking for resources to help me teach bioinorganic chemistry in both my sophomore-level and advanced inorganic chemistry courses. The "metalloproteome" was the subject of an article in the December 12, 2011 issue of C&E News ("Merging Metals into Proteomics: Tackling the Systematic Study of Metalloproteins"). In this article, the author mentions a new database, called Metal MACiE, of metals in metalloenzymes.
This in class activity focuses on the ambidentate ligand thiocyanate. Students compare data for known compounds to data for unknowns to make the bonding assignments. Data is provided from Baer, C.; Pike, J. J. Chem. Ed. 2010, 87, 724 where the authors have the students synthesize all the compounds and then complete the data analysis. My course does not include a lab component but I want the students to use literature to support their learning.