This is a flipped classroom activity that is intended for use in a college-level first semester/first quarter general chemistry course, and aims to provide a real-world context for thermochemistry concepts by focusing on the problem of producing hydrogen fuel in a sustainable manner. Current industrial production of hydrogen relies on extracting hydrogen from hydrocarbon molecules. Producing hydrogen in this manner brings about the obvious problem of relying of fossil fuels for a “sustainable” fuel.

This is a flipped classroom activity intended for use in a first semester general chemistry course. Students are expected to have prior knowledge in determining the molar mass of compounds, how to carry out mole/gram conversions, and how to write balanced chemical reactions. The activity includes:

1) pre-lecture learning videos that guide students through carrying out basic stoichiometric calculations, determining the limiting reactant, and determining the percent yield of a reaction;

Inorganic chemists often use IR spectroscopy to evaluate bond order of ligands, and as a means of determining the electronic properties of metal fragments.

<p>This activity has students use Spartan to build an energy diagram for an SN2 reaction as a function of bond length. The activation energy can then be used to determine the rate constant for the reaction. After a few intoductory questions to orient general chemistry students to the organic reaction (with a short class discussion), the instructions lead them step-by-step to build the energy diagram for CH&lt;sub&gt;3&lt;/sub&gt;Cl + Cl- --&gt; Cl- + CH&lt;sub&gt;3&lt;/sub&gt;Cl.