It is not uncommon for students to view laboratory instruments as black boxes. Unfortunately, this can often result in poor experimental results and interpretation. To tackle this issue, a laboratory course was designed to enable students not only to critically think about operating principles of the instrument but also to improve interpretation…

The subject of uncertainties (sometimes called errors) is traditionally taught (to first-year science undergraduates) towards the end of a course on statistics that defines probability as the limit of many trials, and discusses probability distribution functions and the Gaussian distribution. We show how to introduce students to the concepts of…

Described are two applications of computers in chemistry. The multilinear equations and procedures used in obtaining a least-squares solution for curve fitting in chemistry are presented. Also discussed is the program "ATORB" which can be used to generate graphs of probable electron clouds for various atoms and molecules. (CW)