Chip Nataro (Lafayette College) hosts a live discussion covering the favorite labs that people teach. The discussion somewhat evolved into a conversation on "so, you are teaching inorganic lab for the first time...what do you do?"
Stanley-Gray, Zhang, and Venkataraman from UMass Amherst mined the Cambridge Structural Database to put together graphics that show trends for coordination geometry, distribution of oxidation states, overall coordination geometry, and coordination geometry with specific ligands to understand the influence of ligand on geometry.
In SLiThEr #39 Chip Nataro (Lafayette University) introduces us to the discussion LOs he uses in his senior-level inorganic course and the topics covered.
This paper describes the use of a catalytic nickel system for the hydrodefluorination of aryl amides. While organofluorine compounds are extremely useful because of their unique properties, there are growing concerns about the impact of these compounds on the environment. Carbon-fluorine bonds are extremely strong, and so getting them to react is a significant challenge for chemists.
RSC has a series of chemistry games that can be downloaded from their website. The link here is specifically for games related to transition metals. There are three games (a Jeopardy! style game, a Password-style game and a Taboo-style game). The game formats could easily be adapted to other content. You may need to sign up for a free instructor account to access the resources.
This literature discussion was created to accompany the coordination chemistry chapter of a foundation-level inorganic course. It introduces the concept of C-H agostic interactions.
This Learning Object is dedicated to Prof. Chan as part of the VIPEr LGBTQIAN+ LO collection created in celebration of Pride Month (June) 2022. A profile of Prof. Chan from the Chemical & Engineering News Out and Proud article can be found at
This LO is a literature discussion based on one figure in Chan et. al.
This In-Class Activity is meant to follow up discussions of ligand field theory toward the end of MO theory including the effects of sigma donors, pi donors, and pi acceptors, and how it relates to absorption spectra and observed color of some transition metal complexes. Students have learned crystal field theory and the effects of geometry/symmetry on ∆, then we extend to LFT and how the chemistries of different ligands affect ∆.