During our first fellows workshop, the first cohort of VIPEr fellows pulled together learning objects that they've used and liked or want to try the next time they teach their inorganic courses.
I have not yet implemented this LO. As with other literature discussions, instructors could collect the completed worksheets (by an individual student or in groups of students) for evaluation.
I have not yet implemented this LO so there are currently no evaluation results to share.
This literature discussion focuses upon two journal articles by the Rebek group on the synthesis and host-guest chemistry observed with the "tennis ball."
After completing this literature discussion, students will be able to:
This LO could be used at the end of a traditional 2-semester organic chemistry sequence as an introduction to organic supramolecular systems, as an organic chemistry example within a discussion about inorganic supramolecular chemistry, or in an upper-division elective course about supramolecular chemistry. The LO topic, the "tennis ball," has a published laboratory experiment in J. Chem. Educ. (found here). Time permitting, instructors could have students read the article and complete the literature discussion before executing the experiment in the lab.
As usual, instructors may wish to mix-and-match questions to suit their learning goals.
I have yet to use this resource with students and therefore have no assessment of student learning to share at this time.
I have yet to use this resource with students.
The Rebek Laboratory homepage contains information on and molecular visualizations of a variety of host-guest systems developed by the research group over several decades. The theme behind this set of examples is the use of hydrogen-bonding to achieve self-assembly. Under the "Research" tab, one can find four videos with narration: an introduction to molecular assembly and three videos of specific examples of self-assembled host systems (the cavitand, the cylinder and the volleyball). In addition, at the bottom of the tab, there are links to JSmol files for 5 host systems (tennis ball, jelly donut, cylindrical capsule, softball, and tetrameric capsule) that allow the assemblies to be visualized interactively.
This is a great resource for faculty looking for ways to incorporate the new ACS Committee on Professional Training guidelines to discuss macromolecular, supramolecular, mesoscale and nanoscale systems within the framework of their existing curricula.
I have not yet used this resource with students but here are some possible relevant learning goals.
After viewing the Rebek Laboratory Homepage web source, students will be able to:
1) classify various self-assembled host-guest systems by the number of molecular components forming the assembly
2) identify the number and position of the hydrogen bonds that are responsible for the assembly of each host
3) identify the functional groups on the components of the host systems that are responsible for hydrogen bonding
4) state the experimentally determined percent volume of space generally occupied by guests that are encapsulated in these host systems
I have yet to use this website in my teaching but I hope that it may be a resource in expanding our curriculum in supramolecular chemistry.
I did not assess this piece, except by participation in the discussion
I asked my students to write an open ended essay to answer the question (asked in that first day exercise): What is Inorganic Chemistry.
Interestingly, 2 of my 15 students drew a version of this Venn Diagram to accompany their essays.
This Learning Object came to being sort of (In-)organically on the first day of my sophomore level intro to inorganic course. As I always do, I started the course with the IC Top 10 First Day Activity. (https://www.ionicviper.org/classactivity/ic-top-10-first-day-activity). One of the pieces of that In class activity asks students- novices at Inorganic Chemistry- to sort the articles from the Most Read Articles from Inorganic Chemistry into bins of the various subdisciplines of Inorganic Chemistry. As the discussion unfolded, I just sort of started spontaneously drawing a Venn Diagram on the board.
I think Venn diagrams are an excellent logic tool, one that is too little applied these days for anything other than internet memes. This is a nice little add-on activity to the first day.
Your Venn diagram will likely look different from mine. You're right.
The successful student should be able to:
colored chalk may be handy but not required.
I used this activity in conjuction with a first day activity LO (also published on VIPEr).
I shared a clean copy (this one) with the students after the class where we discussed this.
I typically evaluate this activity through class participation although the answer key is posted after class to let the students evaluate their own understanding of concepts. The students do know that they will be tested on the material within the activity and usually I have a density problem on the exam.
This activity is designed to give the students more freedom as they move from the first density calculation to the last set of calculations. Within the last set of calculations, they encounter a hexagonal unit cell so that may require some additional intervention to get them to think about how to calculate the volume of a hexagonal unit cell.
This activity is designed to relate solid-state structures to the density of materials and then provide a real world example where density is used to design a new method to explore nanotoxicity in human health. Students can learn how to calculate the density of different materials (gold, cerium oxide, and zinc oxide) using basic principles of solid state chemistry and then compare it to the centrifugation method that was developed to evaluate nanoparticle dose rate and agglomeration in solution.
A student should be able to calculate a unit cell volume from structural information, determine the mass of one unit cell, and combine these two parameters to calculate the density for both cubic and hexagonal structures. In addition, students will have an opportunity to read a scientific article and summarize the major findings, place data in a table, and explain the similarities and differences between the densities calculated in the activity and the experimental values that are reported in the literature.
None
I have used this activity in our first semester inorganic chemistry course when we cover solid-state materials. One thing to note is that I do use 2-D projections to describe structures and we cover that in a previous activity. You could remove 2-D projections from this activity if it is not something that you previously covered.
Students are evaluated on their participation in lab, lab safety, lab notebook pages, and a lab report turned in a week after the last day of the experiment.
This lab was first run in spring of 2016, and again in spring of 2017 and 2018 (a different instructor carried out the lab in 2018).
In general, students do well on the lab report and seem to enjoy the experiment.They often need guidance when interpreting the Analytical Chemistry article and selecting the correct equations. Discussing their values with them in office hours ("does that make sense?") helps them understand their calculations.
A sample lab report that scored above 90% is included in the faculty-only files.
This is a nanochemistry lab I developed for my Junior and Senior level Inorganic Chemistry course. I am NOT a nano/matertials person, but I know how important nanochemistry is and I wanted to make something where students could get an interesting introduction to the area. The first time I ran this lab was also the first time I made gold nanoparticles ever!
We do not have any surface/nano instrumentation here (AFM, SEM/TEM, DLS, etc... we can access them at other universities off-campus but that takes time and scheduling), so that was a key limitation in making this lab.
While it was made for an upper-division course, I think It could be adapted and implemented at many levels, including gen chem. I do not spend much time on nano in the lecture (none in fact), so this lab was made to have students learn a bit about nanochemistry somewhere in inorganic chemistry. We have one 10-week quarter of inorganic lecture and lab, offered every spring quarter.
This lab takes approximately 2-3 hours if students are well prepared and using their time well, but is usually spread over 2 days. Students are concurrently doing experiments for another lab or two because we have a lab schedule that overlaps multiple labs, and can do these during one day or across two days. The lab space is an organic chemistry laboratory, so we have access to the usual lab synthetic equipment
Students in thelaboratory write lab reports,which are the due the week after the last day of the lab experiment. In the lab report they use their UV-Vis data to calculate information about the AuNP.
The lab has been posted, as well two photos from students' ferrofluids (these were posted with permission on our departmental blog). A rubric has been posted as a faculty-only file. I have also included a student submission that received over 90% on the lab with their identifying information removed. Students write and introduction and need to cite journal articles in their report, so they are expected to do reading on nanochemistry topics outside of the lab period as they write their reports.
I am sure the lab can be improved, this was what i came up with the materials and time I had. I plan on continuing to revise and edit it as time goes on. Any suggestions are very welcome!
A student should be able to perform a chemical laboratory experiment safely and follow proper lab notebook protocol.
A student should be able to determine the average size of AuNPs from spectroscopic data and primary literature.
A student should determine atomic and nano-scale information from physical properties.
A student should be able to construct a lab report in the style of an ACS article (Students in my lab wrote lab reports for each experiment).
For this experiment, you need
The chemical materials - HAuCl4, trisodium citrate,
Heating/stirring plates
Glassware
UV-Vis spectrometer (mainly Vis)
A laser pointer
Strong magnets (the stronger and larger the better)
The syntheses are relatively straightforward, although we've had some problems getting "spikes" for the ferrofluid. Anecdotally, adding the reagents and doing the steps faster tends to give better "spiking". Some students just see a blob moving around in response to the magnet, which was fine in terms of their report.
The AuNP synthesis can also be done with an ultrasonicator or by addition of sodium borohydride, among other methods. We don't have them make a calibration curve of chloride addition, but that could be a possibility.
I like having a pre-made solution of a red oroganic dye to shine the laser pointer through to compare versus the laser shining through the AuNP solution.
One year, the AuNP synthesis was going very slow. We realized it was because the Au(III) was diluted in acid, so it was protonating the citrate. Boiling for a while before adding the citrate solution helped fix this problem.
KAuCl3 is also a good source of Au(III) for this lab.
Evaluation methods could include grading as an in-class worksheet, trading with a partner for peer grading or turned in as an out-of-class graded homework assignment.
Currently, this activity has not been tested in a classroom. Please post how your students did!
This in-class activity is designed to assist students with the visualization of solid-state close-packed structures, using metal-sulfide nanocrystalline materials as a an example system. Students will be asked to visualize and describe both hexagonal closest packed (hcp) and cubic closest packed (ccp) structure types, and isolate the tetrahedral and octahedral holes within each structure type. Lasty, students will be asked to compare and contrast four metal-sulfide unit cells discussed in the paper below.
Powell, A.E., Hodges J.M., Schaak, R.E. Preserving Both Anion and Cation Sublattice Features during a Nanocrystal Cation-Exchange Reaction: Synthesis of a Metastable Wurtzite-Type CoS and MnSJ. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 471-474.
In answering these questions, a student will…
The use of software - such as the demo version of CrystalMaker (http://www.crystalmaker.co.uk) or StudioViewer (Esko - app stores) - will be really helpful. StudioViewer can be run on cell phones, tablets, or MacOS devises. CrystalMaker is available for both Mac and PC.
This learning object was developed at the 2017 MARM IONiC workshop on VIPEr and Literature Discussions. It has not yet been implemented.
This could be assigned for homework, but would likely work better in class with guidance.
Evaluation methods are at the discretion of the instructor. For example, you may ask students to provide written answers to the questions, evaluate whether they participated in class discussion, or ask students to present their answers to specific questions to the class.
In this literature discussion, students use a paper from the literature to explore the synthesis, structure, characterization (powder XRD, EDS and TEM) and energetics associated with the production of a metastable wurtzite CoS phase. Students also are asked define key terms and acronyms used in the paper; identify the goal of the experiments and determine if the authors met their goal. They examine the fundamental concepts around the key crystal structures available.
Preserving Both Anion and Cation Sublattice Features during a Nanocrystal Cation-Exchange Reaction: Synthesis of a Metastable Wurtzite-Type CoS and MnS
Powell, A.E., Hodges J.M., Schaak, R.E. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 471-474.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.5b10624
There is an in class activitiy specifically written for this paper.
In answering these questions, a student will be able to…
define important scientific terms and acronyms associated with the paper;
describe the rocksalt, NiAs, wurtzite, and zinc blende in terms of anion packing and cation coordination;
differentiate between the structure types described in the paper;
explain the difference between thermodynamically stable and metastable phases and relate it to a free energy diagram; and
describe the structural and composition information obtained from EDS, powder XRD, and TEM experiments.
This learning object was created at the 2017 IONiC Workshop on VIPEr and Literature Discussion. It has not yet been used in class.
The question document attempted by students in preparation for the literature discussion will be due prior to the in-class discussion. In particular, students' performance on the particle-in-a-box question will be evaluated to assess retention from the previously covered course material. The next exam following the discussion will contain specific question(s) (data/figure analysis) addressing these topics. Students' performance difference between the two will be evaluated. The extent to which students improve their post-discussion understanding of the concepts will direct future implementation.
To be determined. This is a newly proposed literature discussion.
This literature article covers a range of topics introduced in a sophomore level course (confinement/particle-in-a-box, spectroscopy, kinetics, mechanism) and would serve as a an end-of-course integrated activity, or as a review activity in an upper level course. The authors of the article employ UV-vis absorption spectroscopy of CdSe quantum dots as a tool to probe the growth mechanism of the nanoparticles, contrasting two pathways.
Reference: DOI 10.1021/ja3079576 J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134, 17298-17305
Apply the particle in a box model to interpret absorbance spectra with respect to nanoparticle size.
Analyze the step-growth and living chain-growth mechanisms proposed in this paper.
Evaluate the kinetics as it applies to the step-addition.
Sophomore level implementation: Recommend focusing on select portions (e.g. Figures 1b, 2, 5 with corresponding text) of the paper rather than having students read the entire document. The learning objects focus on select topics, such as particle-in-a-box, reaction mechanism, and kinetics in conjunction with absorbance spectroscopy. This would be a good literature discussion resource for an end-of-course integrative experience that encompasses multiple topics from general chemistry and inorganic chemistry.
Advance level implementation: For an upper division course, incorporate the paper in its entirety early in the course as an assessment on students’ ability to integrate multiple concepts that they should have learned in general chemistry, organic chemistry, and physical chemistry. To enhance the experience, accompanying the literature discussion on this paper with a laboratory experience by repeating the experimental and characterization procedures presented in the paper, and having students' compare their results with published results. This also serves to enhance students’ scientific literacy by critically assessing the quality of the paper.
Excerpts of the paper and questions can be used on a graded event, or as lesson preparation for in class discussion.
The problems presented here represented half the points on the final exam – I have included point totals to give an idea of the weight assigned to each problem.
Twelve students were enrolled in my course in the fall 2016. The average overall score for these problems was 78%.
For problem 1b, I calculated the oxidation numbers using the familiar general chemistry method of assigning oxygen as –2 and hydrogen as +1. Students recently coming through organic may have some other way to do it, and you may need to provide directions for your students about your preferred method. I think I could have worded part (c) better to try to emphasize the redox processes involved. I wanted them to think of combustion, but I think they needed to be specifically prompted, such as "Give an example of the combustion processes that generate CO2 and trace the oxidation state of carbon through the reaction." Overall my students scored 86% on problem 1.
The second problem (about another method that could be used to measure d-spacing) was fairly hit or miss. Five students got full credit, six students got 3 points, and one got zero. Eleven out of twelve did answer part (a) correctly. I realized as I made this LO that the article says the carbon-based material doesn’t diffract X-rays, but doesn’t actually directly explain whether or not the Cu nanoparticles diffracted X-rays, so you may need to adjust the question to be technically accurate.
Question three (re: surfactants in nanoparticle synthesis) referred back to knowledge from earlier in the course. The overall score was 61%.
Question 4 (define and describe electrodes) was fairly straightforward, and students scored 85%.
Question 5 caused some confusion, as some students missed that I was looking for “carbon-containing” products only. I didn’t count off for that mistake, but it made the problem harder for students who included hydrogen in each box. Overall, students did very well on this problem (89% correct).
Question 6 – again, not too much trouble here (84% correct).
Question 7 – I was surprised that students didn’t do better on this question, as I thought that water reduction was mentioned often in the article. Only three (of 12) students scored 5 points on this problem, and the average score was 53%. This was probably my favorite question, as it foreshadows electrochemistry topics I cover in my inorganic course.
This literature discussion is based on an article describing the use of copper nanoparticles on an N-doped textured graphene material to carry out the highly selective reduction of CO2 to ethanol (Yang Song et al., “High-Selectivity Electrochemical Conversion of CO2 to Ethanol using a Copper Nanoparticle / N-Doped Graphene Electrode” ChemistrySelect 2016, 1, 6055-6061. DOI: 10.1002/slct.201601169). The article provides a good introduction to the concepts of electrochemical reduction, selectivity and recycling of fossil fuels. The literature discussion assignment shared here was used as half of the final exam in a half-credit nanomaterials chemistry course, but could be adapted for use as a take-home or in-class assignment.
After reading this paper and working through the problems, a student will be able to:
These questions comprised half of the final exam for my half-credit nanomaterials chemistry course in the fall of 2016. I gave the article to the students one week ahead of time. They were encouraged to read the article, make any small notes they liked, and meet with me in office hours with questions. At the final exam they were allowed to use their copy of the article, but they were also required to hand in their copy with their exam so that I could make sure they hadn't written lots of extraneous information on the exam copy.
The nanomaterials course features near-weekly homework assignments centered around articles from the literature. Because I used this article at the end of the course, students were already familiar with nanomaterials synthesis and characterization techniques. Thus, some of the questions I asked relied on previous knowledge.
Please feel free to adapt these questions and add some of your own. Leave comments describing any new questions you’ve added.
