Hello,

Does anyone have a good MO theory lab that they've used that gets students to calculate diatomic MO orbitals, look at them, and look at things like how sp mixing (and orbital energies) varies across the row and how electronegativity differences affect the energy and characters of the resulting orbitals?  Using spectral data and matching it to orbitals would be cool too.  We have a good place to fit this into our intro course this semester and haven't done a lab like this before.   

This forum is for discussion about the BITeS post on CUREs (Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences).

As I begin my 19th year of teaching I realize that I do not have a good grasp of group theory or how to formally use it to determine the number of IR active vibrations in a species. I am trying to come up with a good exercise for my students that could introduce them to point groups and character tables.

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to invite you to participate in a chemistry education research project to learn more about your students’ conceptual understanding of important chemistry topics.

Through a grant from the National Science Foundation, my graduate students and I have developed two concept inventories for use in college chemistry classrooms. These assessments are suitable for general chemistry, physical chemistry, and biophysical chemistry. Brief descriptions of these multiple-choice assessments can be found below.

Dear Colleagues,

Does anyone know of a piece of software that can create a NMR spectrum from literature data? For instance, I would like to "create" a spectrum from a list of peaks and coupling constants listed in an article. I find that the visual aspect of students looking at a spectrum (and not at a list of peaks) is more impactful on their ability to understand NMR data. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 

Hi Everyone,

I'm trying to incorporate some more materials chemistry-based labs into my intro inorganic chemistry course and have been finding the Teaching General Chemistry - A Materials Science Companion to be a very useful resource. I'm planning to have my students do Experiment 7 in the book (Periodic Properties and Light-Emitting Diodes). However, I'm finding it difficult to find some of the materials suggested in the book, as the vendor part numbers have changed since the book was published in 1993. I could use your help in one of the following ways:

I was just wondering what others are doing for General Chemistry (I or II) lab reports. I have tried shorter memo-like reports for experiments as well as traditional full reports. 

Does anyone have other ideas that they find help students improve writing and comprehension of the material/techniques?

C&E News used to print annual statistics on commodity chemical production in the US under an article titled