Do you teach nuclear chemistry in your inorganic course? We offer a 1-semester junior-level inorganic class. We touch on nuclear chemistry at the end of General Chemistry II, but really do not go much in depth. Therefore, I have always felt some obligation to cover a bit more in inorganic (basically a slightly expanded version of what is found in Miessler & Tarr). That said, I could really use that day back, so convince me I don't need to cover it. :)
Our department is considering re-formatting general chemistry to use an atoms first approach. We have seen how students struggle with stoichiometry / dimensional analysis, and we are wondering if starting off the first semester with atomic structure and bonding concepts would help students settle in more before they hit the more math-y topics.
Does anyone have any experience to share? Favorite textbooks? Advice? We are not likely to make the leap unless we're better informed. (I have found one recent J. Chem. Ed. article on the topic.)
Hi All,
Our Graduate Women in Science Chapter is starting to brainstorm for our spring Girl Scout Workshop. I was wondering if anyone has any good chemistry related activities that they have used for this sort of thing. Any ideas would be welcome and greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Angela Jovanovic-Bischof
Does anyone have any cool GenChem-my Inoroganicky labs I might adapt and implement? I really want to change up our stale lab sequence. I would especially be interested in labs in development. I have 10 sections of 20 students each this semester, and would be happy to share assessment data so that you could get your experiment published.
S.
I'm putting the finishing touches on a web-based activity created to explore isomerization in octahedral complexes. It is based on the discussion in Miessler, Fischer and Tarr. I will probably submit the activity to VIPEr in due course, but I was hoping to get a little bit of feedback, especially from those who are not accustomed to using Mathematica.
VIPEr Folks,
This is an AWESOME read. Check out the link.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/07/31…
S
I recently attended a workshop on green chemistry and shared with them this great web resource. My question to the group is how many of us incorporate green chemistry into our curriculum? In what ways is green chemistry incorporated, through lecture, lab or both? What sort of resources are people using for this? I plan to post some information from the workshop on the viper site when I have time. I am interested to see how many of us are teaching this to our students.
Hello,
I would be grateful to hear from college programs that teach less than one full year of General Chemistry. At present, we teach 3 quarters of General Chemistry (Zumdahl and Zumdahl), a one quarter Fundamental Inorganic Chemistry (Rayner-Canham and Overton) and a one quarter Advanced Inorganic Chemistry (Shriver and Atkins).
We are exploring the possibility of shortening our general chemistry sequence to 2 quarters and then combining the topics usually covered in the third quarter into Fundamental Inorganic Chemistry course and other courses.
I am looking for some suggestions on innovative strategies for introducing the chemistry of main group elements to students. Our Inorganic Chemistry class is a pre-pchem lecture and lab and I'll be using the 5th edition of Miessler/Fischer/Tarr. (And a big thank you goes out to the authors, who have finally accepted to include at least a little bit of redox chemistry in the text.) My issue arises with Chapter 8 (and the like), which in my opinion boils down to "read these sections, memorize these facts, quiz Monday".