The monitoring of pH changes due to dissolved carbon dioxide from algal balls offers a way for students to acquire good understanding of the processes of photosynthesis and respiration. Here, 54 high school participants were enlisted to conduct the experiment physically and with an Augmented Reality (AR) tool developed. A survey conducted after…

The process of method development is at the heart of analytical chemistry, yet direct experimental experience with the process is rarely taught in the undergraduate laboratory. We report here an experiment that uses rapid, safe, and inexpensive paper-based microfluidics with cell phone detection in order to facilitate the development of a…

This paper describes a very simple, but accurate method of finding the position of the infinity focus of a telescope objective relative to the rear face of its lens cell. The method is easily undertaken in the classroom and provides an opportunity for learners to conduct an interesting and novel optical experiment which introduces thick lens…

An easy operating tool has been developed for the quick measurement of thermoelectric power. The setup is made using a tweezer which consists of two circular copper plate electrodes. These copper electrodes are fixed to two arms of the tweezer which act as hot and cold probes. The setup has the very important advantage of easy sample mounting and…

This paper mainly proposes a simple method to record scattered light rays via photography, presenting a clearer and brighter representation of the optical path. This technique is applied to the double-slit interference experiment and single-slit diffraction experiment typically conducted in general physics courses, and shows the intuitive results…

In this study, we visualized the superposition principle of sound waves in a both-closed-end (BCE) resonance tube. The resonance tube is constructed using an acrylic tube with 2.64 cm internal diameter and 150 cm length, polystyrene beads to illustrate the positions of displacement nodes and antinodes and two identical detachable speakers as…

The ubiquitous bouncy ball, or "superball," is an engaging child's toy that has endured for more than 50 years. But what makes a bouncy ball so uniquely suited to its name? Steel balls, for example, are more highly elastic than are butadiene bouncy balls. Yet it is butadiene balls, and not steel balls, that appear in toy stores and…

In this article we consider a well-known simple, very accessible demonstration of surface tension with a small boat propelled by substances that change the surface tension of water. A simple quantitative evaluation is provided that matches well with experimental data. A modification to the experiment is proposed allowing it to continue for a long…

Polymers are ubiquitous and essential to modern society, which is why the American Chemical Society has mandated inclusion of polymer chemistry in the undergraduate curriculum. To meet this requirement, we have chosen to weave a polymeric theme through multiple laboratory courses beginning with organic chemistry, where students use aspartic acid…

A eutectic system is a mixture of two or more substances, displaying a melting temperature lower than its standalone components. The eutectic composition displays the lowest melting temperature of all mixtures. Typically, a eutectic system is used as an example of binary phase diagrams to demonstrate to undergraduate students. Herein, the liquidus…

Watching over a coffee maker in operation, and designing a simple experiment using it, invokes familiar and unfamiliar physical phenomena and techniques involving calorimetry and heat transfer.

Guided inquiry is the practice of allowing students to come to their own conclusions about a set of data instead of verifying a known result using a given experimental procedure. Open inquiry takes this idea one step further by allowing students to develop their own experiment and then analyze the data to arrive at a conclusion. To expose upper…

Rising cases of COVID-19 caused St. John's University to transition to an online educational model in the spring 2020 semester. As a result, an in-person Cooperative Learning advanced general chemistry laboratory course was transitioned into an online/remote Cooperative Learning experience. Cooperative Learning in the general chemistry laboratory…

A new two-step experiment has been designed and developed for the curriculum of the Organic Chemistry Laboratory 2 (CHEM2240L) sophomore course at Xavier University of Louisiana, in New Orleans. Initially, cyclohexanol was converted to cyclohexanone using bleach as the oxidizing agent followed by the formation of the cyclohexanone oxime. However,…

Interest in smartphone-based learning, especially in the use of internal sensors in smartphones for physics experiments, is increasing rapidly. Internal sensors in smartphones such as acoustic sensor, optical sensor, and acceleration sensor can help researchers alleviate the problems including insufficient accuracy with low-cost equipment, high…