This project report highlights a simple yet effective outreach lab benefiting the community partner, specifically the Alameda Point Collaborative (APC) youth program and Saint Mary's College students in a general science course. Building on a partnership focused on reciprocity, a portable lab experiment (Mattson Microscale Gas Chemistry lab) was…

Plant extracts and their components have been reported to have antimicrobial properties against phytopathogens. Although such properties could be harnessed for the development of new pathogen control strategies, there are no standardised methods for their assessment in different extracts. The laboratory exercise presented here involves the use of…

Visual representations, such as pathway models, are increasingly being used to both communicate higher education science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education program evaluation plans as well as accurately represent complex programs and the systems within which the educational programs reside. However, these representations…

Astronomy is one of the few sciences where the data (star-light) can be seen by all. Yet, there is a disconnect between a typical undergraduate lecture and, for example, where a planet may be in the sky and how to observe it. With the advent of moderate cost, high-quality 'back-garden' astronomy, and standard computers powerful enough to produce…

Each year, a large number of higher education students in the UK transfer from programs at further and higher education colleges to the second or third year of a bachelor's degree. The success of this movement is largely dependent on how closely the curricula of the two programs are aligned. Over the past two years, students from the Higher…

The current work develops intelligent tutoring aspects for the DiscoverOChem learning platform. Intelligent tutoring systems are technology-based learning systems that can adapt the learning experience to better serve individual users. DiscoverOChem (www.discoverochem.com) is a free Internet-based platform for learning undergraduate-level organic…

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) play an essential role in the teaching of introductory chemistry courses at many higher education institutions. On the basis of best practices suggested by the literature, we developed our GTA training course to focus on modeling best practices in the classroom, providing opportunities for incoming GTAs to try…

The ability to collaborate with culturally diverse groups is essential, not only to further scientific knowledge but also to solve complex global problems. However, not all students have opportunities to develop intercultural competencies through study abroad programs, due to various issues such as cost, rigid curriculum, and unrelated field of…

Exposure to nature can improve mental health and cognitive abilities, while creating enhanced engagement with biological course material through interactions with organisms and ecosystems. Remote biology education was suddenly implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic at many universities, and such distance education continues to provide broadened…

RAMP is an acronym for the process "recognize hazards, assess risk, minimize risk, and prepare for emergencies". This paper describes these four steps in the context of undergraduate instruction about chemical health and safety.

This paper describes the adaptation of an upper-division undergraduate seminar course taught at the University of Missouri in Columbia (MU) to the Summer School Program of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing (UCAS). The course "Scientific Writing in Chemistry" addresses an essential need for science students across…

Study abroad experiences, relatively rare in chemistry programs and encouraged by the American Chemical Society, are a way to advance the cultural competence of students. We describe a study abroad experience that includes an upper level chemistry course on fermentation. Many articles have described the integration of fermentation into lecture and…

Electrochemistry is broad and interdisciplinary by nature and as such has become a powerful tool in science, technology, engineering, math, and medical (STEMM) fields ranging from energy storage to biotechnology. However, traditional undergraduate chemistry education does not offer students the opportunity to create direct connections between…

Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) are exciting nanoparticles used for transporting therapeutic drugs into an organism. In this laboratory work, a simple experiment is performed to introduce master's students into the field of nanotechnology, here applied to health including the applications in the healthcare/pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry.…

This is an easy and cheap experiment where chemistry Masters students can evaluate the role of some metal ions (i.e., Cu[superscript II] and Mn[superscript II]) in dopamine oxidation, related to Parkinsonism. The required prior knowledge is being familiar with the basis of UV-vis spectroscopy. Details of the activity, including procedure and…