13
Feb
2019
Materials chemistry
1
Feb
2019
Inorganic Chemistry
Submitted by Steven Girard, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater
16
Jan
2019
Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry
Submitted by Catherine McCusker, East Tennessee State University
3
Jan
2019
Venn Diagram activity- What is inorganic Chemistry?
Submitted by Sheila Smith, University of Michigan- DearbornEvaluation Methods:
I did not assess this piece, except by participation in the discussion
Evaluation Results:
I asked my students to write an open ended essay to answer the question (asked in that first day exercise): What is Inorganic Chemistry.
Interestingly, 2 of my 15 students drew a version of this Venn Diagram to accompany their essays.
Description:
This Learning Object came to being sort of (In-)organically on the first day of my sophomore level intro to inorganic course. As I always do, I started the course with the IC Top 10 First Day Activity. (https://www.ionicviper.org/classactivity/ic-top-10-first-day-activity). One of the pieces of that In class activity asks students- novices at Inorganic Chemistry- to sort the articles from the Most Read Articles from Inorganic Chemistry into bins of the various subdisciplines of Inorganic Chemistry. As the discussion unfolded, I just sort of started spontaneously drawing a Venn Diagram on the board.
I think Venn diagrams are an excellent logic tool, one that is too little applied these days for anything other than internet memes. This is a nice little add-on activity to the first day.
Your Venn diagram will likely look different from mine. You're right.
Learning Goals:
The successful student should be able to:
- identify the various sub-disciplines of inorganic chemistry.
- apply the rules of logic diagrams to construct overlapping fields of an Venn diagram.
Prerequisites:
Corequisites:
Equipment needs:
colored chalk may be handy but not required.
Topics Covered:
Course Level:
Subdiscipline:
Related activities:
Implementation Notes:
I used this activity in conjuction with a first day activity LO (also published on VIPEr).
I shared a clean copy (this one) with the students after the class where we discussed this.
Time Required:
10-15 minutes
11
Sep
2018
Advanced Inorganic Chemistry
Submitted by Darren Achey, Kutztown University
24
Jul
2018
Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry
Submitted by Robin Macaluso, University of Texas Arlington
15
Jun
2018
Developing methodology to evaluate nanotoxicology: Use of density.
Submitted by Tori Forbes, University of IowaEvaluation Methods:
I typically evaluate this activity through class participation although the answer key is posted after class to let the students evaluate their own understanding of concepts. The students do know that they will be tested on the material within the activity and usually I have a density problem on the exam.
Evaluation Results:
This activity is designed to give the students more freedom as they move from the first density calculation to the last set of calculations. Within the last set of calculations, they encounter a hexagonal unit cell so that may require some additional intervention to get them to think about how to calculate the volume of a hexagonal unit cell.
Description:
This activity is designed to relate solid-state structures to the density of materials and then provide a real world example where density is used to design a new method to explore nanotoxicity in human health. Students can learn how to calculate the density of different materials (gold, cerium oxide, and zinc oxide) using basic principles of solid state chemistry and then compare it to the centrifugation method that was developed to evaluate nanoparticle dose rate and agglomeration in solution.
Learning Goals:
A student should be able to calculate a unit cell volume from structural information, determine the mass of one unit cell, and combine these two parameters to calculate the density for both cubic and hexagonal structures. In addition, students will have an opportunity to read a scientific article and summarize the major findings, place data in a table, and explain the similarities and differences between the densities calculated in the activity and the experimental values that are reported in the literature.
Corequisites:
Subdiscipline:
Course Level:
Equipment needs:
None
Prerequisites:
Related activities:
Implementation Notes:
I have used this activity in our first semester inorganic chemistry course when we cover solid-state materials. One thing to note is that I do use 2-D projections to describe structures and we cover that in a previous activity. You could remove 2-D projections from this activity if it is not something that you previously covered.
Time Required:
This activity usually takes about 40 to 45 minutes.
Web Resources:
13
Jun
2018
The Preparation and Characterization of Nanoparticles
Submitted by Kyle Grice, DePaul UniversityEvaluation Methods:
Students are evaluated on their participation in lab, lab safety, lab notebook pages, and a lab report turned in a week after the last day of the experiment.
Evaluation Results:
This lab was first run in spring of 2016, and again in spring of 2017 and 2018 (a different instructor carried out the lab in 2018).
In general, students do well on the lab report and seem to enjoy the experiment.They often need guidance when interpreting the Analytical Chemistry article and selecting the correct equations. Discussing their values with them in office hours ("does that make sense?") helps them understand their calculations.
A sample lab report that scored above 90% is included in the faculty-only files.
Description:
This is a nanochemistry lab I developed for my Junior and Senior level Inorganic Chemistry course. I am NOT a nano/matertials person, but I know how important nanochemistry is and I wanted to make something where students could get an interesting introduction to the area. The first time I ran this lab was also the first time I made gold nanoparticles ever!
We do not have any surface/nano instrumentation here (AFM, SEM/TEM, DLS, etc... we can access them at other universities off-campus but that takes time and scheduling), so that was a key limitation in making this lab.
While it was made for an upper-division course, I think It could be adapted and implemented at many levels, including gen chem. I do not spend much time on nano in the lecture (none in fact), so this lab was made to have students learn a bit about nanochemistry somewhere in inorganic chemistry. We have one 10-week quarter of inorganic lecture and lab, offered every spring quarter.
This lab takes approximately 2-3 hours if students are well prepared and using their time well, but is usually spread over 2 days. Students are concurrently doing experiments for another lab or two because we have a lab schedule that overlaps multiple labs, and can do these during one day or across two days. The lab space is an organic chemistry laboratory, so we have access to the usual lab synthetic equipment
Students in thelaboratory write lab reports,which are the due the week after the last day of the lab experiment. In the lab report they use their UV-Vis data to calculate information about the AuNP.
The lab has been posted, as well two photos from students' ferrofluids (these were posted with permission on our departmental blog). A rubric has been posted as a faculty-only file. I have also included a student submission that received over 90% on the lab with their identifying information removed. Students write and introduction and need to cite journal articles in their report, so they are expected to do reading on nanochemistry topics outside of the lab period as they write their reports.
I am sure the lab can be improved, this was what i came up with the materials and time I had. I plan on continuing to revise and edit it as time goes on. Any suggestions are very welcome!
Course Level:
Prerequisites:
Corequisites:
Subdiscipline:
Learning Goals:
A student should be able to perform a chemical laboratory experiment safely and follow proper lab notebook protocol.
A student should be able to determine the average size of AuNPs from spectroscopic data and primary literature.
A student should determine atomic and nano-scale information from physical properties.
A student should be able to construct a lab report in the style of an ACS article (Students in my lab wrote lab reports for each experiment).
Topics Covered:
Equipment needs:
For this experiment, you need
The chemical materials - HAuCl4, trisodium citrate,
Heating/stirring plates
Glassware
UV-Vis spectrometer (mainly Vis)
A laser pointer
Strong magnets (the stronger and larger the better)
Related activities:
Implementation Notes:
The syntheses are relatively straightforward, although we've had some problems getting "spikes" for the ferrofluid. Anecdotally, adding the reagents and doing the steps faster tends to give better "spiking". Some students just see a blob moving around in response to the magnet, which was fine in terms of their report.
The AuNP synthesis can also be done with an ultrasonicator or by addition of sodium borohydride, among other methods. We don't have them make a calibration curve of chloride addition, but that could be a possibility.
I like having a pre-made solution of a red oroganic dye to shine the laser pointer through to compare versus the laser shining through the AuNP solution.
One year, the AuNP synthesis was going very slow. We realized it was because the Au(III) was diluted in acid, so it was protonating the citrate. Boiling for a while before adding the citrate solution helped fix this problem.
KAuCl3 is also a good source of Au(III) for this lab.
Time Required:
2 hours
Web Resources:
17
Jan
2018
Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory
Submitted by Anne Bentley, Lewis & Clark College
15
Jan
2018
Inorganic and Materials Chemistry
Submitted by Karen S. Brewer, Hamilton CollegePages
