What's Your Favorite Lecture?

Submitted by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College on Wed, 09/17/2008 - 20:40

After introducing my Gen Chem students to the Quantum Mechanical Model of the Atom today and waiting...waiting for that lovely question..."but how does an electron get from one side of the p orbital to the other?", I decided this might be my favorite lecture of the semester.

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Foundational course

Submitted by Tim Herzog / Weber State University on Wed, 09/10/2008 - 16:11

We're revamping our curriculum to include a foundational inorganic course probably in the sophomore year.  I have a couple of questions to those of you who teach this course or are planning such a course.  

1.  What books do you like?  I have struggled to find anything that fits the bill for this type of class.  

2.  Where do you put the course?  Does it usually land in the sophomore year?  We currently have quant and organic, but also need to add a more foundational P-chem and biochem.  Where does it all fit? 

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First day activity

Submitted by Jim Goll / Edgewood College on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 08:45
I wear my VIPEr tatoo on my arm.  I show short segments of the movies Apollo 13 and October Sky and talk about scientific methodology.  As part of this activity the students take a short exra-credit quiz.
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Cool first day activities?

Submitted by Hilary Eppley / DePauw University on Sun, 08/24/2008 - 20:42
Hi everyone, I was wondering what kinds of interesting ways that people kick off the school year/ set the tone for the semester with their students (upper or lower division)? With my lower level students, I've sometimes taken a recent article from a newspaper (an article about a local magnesium fire or the polonium poisoning that happened a couple of years ago, come to mind as examples) and had students come up with 10 inorganic chemistry questions based on the article, to emphasize the importance of asking the right kinds of questions in the class.
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Scientist code of ethics

Submitted by Tim Herzog / Weber State University on Wed, 08/13/2008 - 15:58

I am working on a syllabus for an upper division lab and thought that it would be great to have my students sign some sort of a scientific honor statement in order to try to foster an atmosphere of honesty in data collection and reporting.  Has anybody done this or something similar?  Was it successful?  Does anybody have a good one?  Of course I would reference you:) 

Thanks,

Tim

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Bioinorganic chemistry in sophomore level courses

Submitted by Hilary Eppley / DePauw University on Sun, 07/20/2008 - 21:31
As I've stated in another post, we have this odd first semester course that is a hybrid between a sophomore descriptive inorganic chemistry course and general chemistry. Since this course is the ONLY inorganic course that our biochemistry majors are exposed to, I want to give them a flavor of why inorganic chemistry is important to their field. Some of the topics that I have typically taught with bioinorganic applications include: acidity of metal ions and bioavailability, HSAB, types of ligands and the chelate effect, and hemoglobin as a case study in coordination chemistry. I've sometimes done some redox applications as well. Anyone have any particularly fun bioinorganic chemistry applications that are accessible to approximately a sophomore level course (perhaps with an appropriate article for the students to read)? --Hilary
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