We report on an investigation of student thinking about steady-state pipe flow of an incompressible fluid. About 250 undergraduate engineering students were given a test consisting of two hydrodynamics questions, combining multiple-choice format with subsequent open-ended explanations. There is substantial evidence that students have difficulty…

Simulations have changed chemistry education by allowing students to visualize the motion and interaction of particles underlying important chemical processes. With kinetics, such visualizations can illustrate how particles interact to yield successful reactions and how changes in concentration and temperature impact the number and success of…

In this study we present an analysis of how the structure and content of the Greek school textbook approaches the concepts of chemical kinetics, and an investigation of the difficulties that 11th grade Greek students face regarding these concepts. Based on the structure and content of the Greek textbook, a tool was developed and applied to…

A three-part project for students in physical chemistry, computational chemistry, or independent study is described in which they explore applications of valence bond (VB) and molecular orbital-configuration interaction (MO-CI) treatments of H[subscript 2]. Using a scientific spreadsheet, students construct potential-energy (PE) curves for several…

This is the start of a road map for the effective introduction of inquiry-based learning in chemistry. Advantages of inquiry-based approaches to the development of scientific literacy are widely discussed in the literature. However, unless chemistry educators take account of teachers' reservations and identified disadvantages such approaches will…