Urgent action is needed across the world to combat climate change and its impact on the social, economic, and environmental well-being of humans and the planet. This important topic is one that is a priority for integration into chemistry classrooms, laboratories, and outreach efforts. It connects strongly to foundational chemistry concepts and…

Organic molecules are invisible objects, but they can be visualized and manipulated by using molecular models. The object-based learning (OBL) approach, which is an educational tool developed for museums and collection items, is tailored and applied to a first-year bachelor course of organic chemistry. At the beginning of the course, each student…

There is a gap between the importance of certain archeological material sources and their perception, both by professionals and by the general public. Textiles, for example, are essential to understanding practices that marked daily life and rituals in the past, but they have often been extremely degraded over time, particularly in temperate…

This study describes an educational strategy of forming transdisciplinary work teams--with students from different careers and semesters--for developing academic projects as a collaborative learning tool. This strategy was implemented in the elective course Process Design, which involved developing projects in industrial processes. As a final…

Primary literature searching and the utility of research articles in chemistry teaching and instructions provide connections between conceptual understanding and the application of chemical knowledge. Article citation tracking, an often-neglected dimension in literature exploration, expands information seeking and provides opportunities to track…

A new project-based laboratory (PJBL) was developed for general chemistry students to tackle the steps involved in chemical water quality analysis using an accessible, real-world hydrologic system (the lakes of the Lower Grand Coulee, Washington). This PJBL was developed in a joint general chemistry and environmental geology course by a…

Faculty in the Chemistry and Environmental Science programs at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, collaborated to develop an undergraduate course in Field-Based Environmental Chemistry. The course was developed and implemented as a 2-semester, 1-semester, and online, synchronous course offered during the 2020/21 COVID-19 pandemic. As…

For the past nine years, we have been offering an interdisciplinary course for science majors: The Biology and Chemistry of Brewing. This course is primarily laboratory- and inquiry-based; from a total of 24 h of student/instructor contact time, approximately 6 h are devoted to lecture, and the other 18 h are divided between laboratory exercises,…

While X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) is a fundamental analytical technique used by solid-state laboratories across a breadth of disciplines, it is still underrepresented in most undergraduate curricula. In this work, we incorporate XRPD analysis into an inquiry-based project that requires students to identify the crystalline component(s) of…

A Project Based Learning (PBL) methodology was used in the practical laboratories of the Advanced Physical Chemistry department. The project type proposed simulates "real research" focusing on sol-gel synthesis and the application of the obtained sol as a stone consolidant. Students were divided into small groups (2 to 3 students) to…

Interactivity and inquiry-based learning science are effective ways of helping students overcome their perception of chemistry as an alien and abstract topic and instead approach the subject as a creative way of understanding ideas and applying mastered concepts to new contexts. Data acquisition systems are an extremely useful form of educational…

This paper discusses a K-12/university collaboration in which students participated in a four-day scenario-based summer STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) camp aimed at making difficult scientific concepts salient. This scenario, Jumpstart STEM-CSI: Chocolate Science Investigation (JSCSI), used open- and guided-inquiry…

Case studies and current literature are combined with spectroscopic analysis to provide a unique chemistry experience for art history students and to provide a unique inquiry-based laboratory experiment for analytical chemistry students. The XRF analysis method was used to demonstrate to nonscience majors (art history students) a powerful…