private reading on metalloenzymes

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Thu, 04/23/2009 - 12:51
I have a student interested in doing a private reading on "synthetic analogs of metalloenzymes for the reduction of water to H2 and the oxidation of water to O2."  He is also intrested in computational chemistry, but  beyond "read a bunch of Nocera papers," I am at a loss here.  I suppose we could trace the history of the OEC in PSII;  comparing the determination  of the real structure with the concurrent development of model complexes (functional and spectroscopic).  Anyone have any suggestions?
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Good papers from the recent literature for class discussion

We have a Junior Qualifying Exam at Reed, which in our department takes the form of an oral exam based on a recent paper from the primary literature for each student.  I just finished picking 4 papers for this year's crop of inorganic junior quals.  The students have 3 days to learn everything they can about the paper before the oral exam in front of 2 faculty.  Several of these choices were inspired by talks I heard at the ACS Salt Lake City meeting.

Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College Sat, 04/04/2009 - 02:59
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Use of Model sets in Inorganic chemistry.

Submitted by Kurt Birdwhistell / Loyola University New Orleans on Sat, 03/28/2009 - 11:22

I use the framework molecular model set by Prentice Hall in my Inorganic class. 

I am about to put in my "book" order for the fall and I was wondering if anyone has found a better model set to use in Inorganic chemistry?  This set has trigonal pyramid and octahedral geometries. 

 

Kurt

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Thermite Born-Haber Cycle and Al2O3 Lattice Energy

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Tue, 03/03/2009 - 12:36

Hi all,

On my inorganic exam last week, I wrote a question asking the students to construct a Born-Haber cycle to calculate the heat of reaction for the thermite reaction (nicely timed as our lab staff had just done the demo outside of our classroom for the Gen Chem students).  The data that I provided were the first three ionization energies for Fe and Al, the heats of formation for Fe and Al in the gas phase, and the lattice energies for Al2O3 and Fe2O3. 

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SYMMETRY CHALLENGE!

Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 10:02

Symmetry Challenge!
A contest across VIPEr, the Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource.

Here is a chance to show your symmetry skills to all the inorganic chemists and students of inorganic chemistry on ionicviper.org!

Given a cube and 6 equal length lines how many objects of different point group symmetry can you construct?  All six lines must fit either edge to edge or vertex to vertex (it is ok to mix and match if you want), and each face must have one and only one line on it.

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Element of the Week, Try Ligand of the Week for your Inorganic Course

Submitted by Kurt Birdwhistell / Loyola University New Orleans on Sun, 02/01/2009 - 11:39

Oral presentations in Inorganic chemistry- Ligand of the week

I have had students in the past give short oral Element reports.  They are given the following guidelines:
1.  Where is the element found in nature (biology or geology)?
    2.  How is the element used in society? As an element or in a Compound, etc.
    3.  Show some balanced equations involving the element making or breaking bonds.
    4.  Show structures of  compounds including the element.
    5.  Show chemistry you think is particularly interesting.

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Comprehensive Senior Exams?

Submitted by Hilary Eppley / DePauw University on Thu, 01/29/2009 - 10:57
We have a senior comp requirement at DePauw. Students are given a paper from the primary literature (any field of chemistry is fair game but it usually depends on the organizing faculty member's area of expertise), and they are given two weeks to digest it. They work together to understand it, and go ask questions of faculty members.
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Course Learning Goals

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Mon, 01/26/2009 - 16:13

Thanks to some guidance and support IONiC colleagues, I sat down to critically think about what I want students to learn from my inorganic courses before I wrote my syllabi this spring.  For the first time in 16 years of teaching (shamelessly admitted), I included course learning goals on my syllabi.  I thought it would be interesting to share these and compare to what other folks are doing.

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