A guided-inquiry lab, suitable for first-year general chemistry or high school advanced placement chemistry, is presented that uses only inexpensive, store-bought materials. The reaction of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) with aqueous acetic acid (vinegar), under the constraint of the challenge to completely fill a sealable plastic bag with the…

Research on learning in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory necessitates an understanding of students' perspectives of learning. Novak's Theory of Meaningful Learning states that the cognitive (thinking), affective (feeling), and psychomotor (doing) domains must be integrated for meaningful learning to occur. The psychomotor domain is the…

We describe the content and organization of a series of day-long field trips to a university for high school students that connect chemistry content to issues of sustainability. The seven laboratory activities are in the areas of environmental degradation, energy production, and green chemistry. The laboratory procedures have been modified from…

It has been suggested that there is a need to deepen the understanding of fluid dynamics in the introductory physics course and to offer interesting experiments to do so. To address this need we have developed a laboratory experiment and the supporting analysis to demonstrate the role of viscosity and the interestingly mysterious use of…

We describe how to produce and purify proteins from "Escherichia coli" inclusion bodies by adapting versatile, preparative-scale techniques to the undergraduate laboratory schedule. This 7-week sequence of experiments fits into an annual cycle of research activity in biochemistry courses. Recombinant proteins are expressed as inclusion bodies,…

Incorporating research-based lab activities into general chemistry at a large university can be challenging, considering the high enrollments and costs typically associated with the courses. Performing sweeping curricular overhauls of the general chemistry laboratory can be difficult, and in some cases discouraged, as many would rather maintain…

The purpose of this experiment was to create a simple and inexpensive flame photometer to measure the concentration of sodium in beverages, such as Gatorade. We created a nebulizer using small tubing and sprayed the sample into the base of a Bunsen burner. Adjacent to the flame was a photodiode with a filter specific for the emission of the sodium…

Mercury is a known neurotoxin that is particularly harmful to children and unborn fetuses. Consumption of contaminated fish is one major route of mercury exposure. This laboratory experiment gives students an opportunity to measure mercury concentrations in store-bought seafood and compare the results to suggested exposure limits. The U.S.…

A computational experiment that investigates single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) has been developed and employed in an upper-level undergraduate physical chemistry laboratory course. Computations were carried out to determine the electronic structure, radial breathing modes, and the influence of the nanotube's diameter on the…

Vanillin, the compound responsible for the well-known vanilla aroma, is almost exclusively produced via a chemical process, with only a small fraction extracted from natural sources, namely, the bean of the orchid "Vanilla planifolia". Research is being done towards a green chemistry process to obtain natural vanillin. A model biotechnological…

A new solvent-free microwave experiment to synthesize the ionic liquid 1-hexadecyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide (HDMIm-Br) in high yield is presented. The structure is confirmed by IR and [superscript 1]H NMR spectra. HDMIm-Br is then used to prepare an organic-inorganic mesoporous material MCM-41. The microscopic arrangements of mesoporous…

A recipe is a great way to learn about the procedure and the variables (or "ingredients") involved. Cookbooks are comforting and valuable: They're easy to follow, and people know what they'll get. The problem is that cookbook labs end just when things get interesting. The excitement of science is in understanding the discovery and pursuing the…

A simple, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly undergraduate laboratory experiment is described in which students use visible spectroscopy to determine a numerical value for an equilibrium constant, K[subscript c]. The experiment correlates well with the lecture topic of equilibrium even though the subject of the study is an acid-base…

In this laboratory or demonstration exercise, we mount a small airfoil with its long axis vertical at one end of a nearly frictionless rotating platform. Air from a leaf blower produces a sidewise lift force L on the airfoil and a drag force D in the direction of the air flow (Fig. 1). The rotating platform is kept in equilibrium by adding weights…

Experiments are described for the preparation of imidazolium chloride precursors to "N"-heterocyclic carbenes and their cyclopentadienyl nickel chloride derivatives. The syntheses have been optimized for second- and third-year undergraduate laboratories that have a maximum programmed length of three hours per week. The experiments are flexible and…