This is a collection of LOs that I used to teach a junior-senior seminar course on organometallics during Fall 2023 at Harvey Mudd College. There were a total of 11 students in the course. Most of the students had taken one semester of both organic and physical chemistry, and about half had taken inorganic (none from me, though, as I was on sabbatical). I used the Stanley textbook hosted on this site (linked below).
I am moving away from teaching the Goldberg paper (still one of my favorites) and instead wanted to teach just the highlights as part of my seminar class in organometallic chemistry this fall. I created this shorter version of the activity to use in class. I did NOT have them read the paper in advance, hence the summaries in the LO itself.
This is a computer-based activity intended for a bioinorganic chemistry course composed of upper-level undergraduate students. It is helpful for students to be familiar with concepts of electron transfer, including a surface-level introduction to Marcus theory and the inverted region, and photosynthetic charge separation before beginning this activity. However, this activity can easily be adapted to students with other levels of preparation in a bioinorganic course.
This is a digital "escape room" where students determine point groups of molecules and answer follow-up questions to determine four digits. The four digits can be used to unlock a physical lockbox which is brought to class with small prizes inside.
This literature discussion was created during the 2023 IONiC VIPEr workshop at Morgan State University. It highlights the work of Prof. Robert J. Gilliard Jr.
Guided literature reading of Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, 60, 13065-13072: Stabilization of the Elusive 9-Carbene-9-Borafluorene Monoanion.
There are three components of the assignment:
This literature discussion on the Hot Paper communication in Chemistry, A European Journal; highlights the first examples of borepinium and borfluorenium cations whose optical properties can be tuned and also the very first reported example of thermochromism in these cationic species. R. J. Gilliard, Chem. Eur. J. 2019, 25, 12512. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201903348
Rigorous treatment of the chemistry of inorganic compounds, including structure, properties, and reactions, and their interpretation in terms of quantum chemistry, and solid state chemistry; analysis with modern instrumentation.
This is a hands-on introduction to molecular symmetry and point groups. Students are not expected to have any exposure to molecular symmetry before this lab. Students work in pairs to identify symmetry elements in molecules and assign molecules to appropriate point groups.