Engaging students in scientific practices has become an important pedagogical component in STEM education, although its implementation in laboratories is still emerging. This paper uses three types of guiding questions to facilitate scientific practices in introductory and analytical chemistry laboratories. What makes our instructional model…

Laboratory studies are very important for science education but also involve various risks. It is possible to minimize these risks by providing a safe working environment. This study aims to determine the knowledge and views of secondary school students on laboratory safety and to identify their deficiencies in this regard. The survey method was…

Many physics projects recently designed for high school teachers use Arduino as the main tool for managing sensors and data acquisition. This is a low-cost integrated development environment programmed with a simplified version of the C++ language. In comparison, the Raspberry Pi 3 platform, which also allows for the design of physics projects,…

This experiment combines analytical techniques of solid-phase extraction (SPE) and gas chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-QTOF-MS) to determine organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in river water as a means to develop and improve student understanding of the use of GC-QTOF-MS for qualitative and quantitative analysis. In…

Due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (spring 2020), universities quickly moved to remote instruction. Our research during this time frame included investigating course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) in General Chemistry, and we found ourselves in the middle of a CURE study without any laboratory component (aka…

Organic electrosynthesis is an increasingly popular tool for driving and probing redox reactions. Recent advances in this field often employ an electrocatalyst to enhance the selectivity and efficiency of electrochemical reactions. A laboratory experiment was developed to introduce students to relevant mechanistic techniques in electrochemistry…

In an idealized General Chemistry Laboratory curriculum, students would hone their experimental design ability with practice encouraged by laboratory exercises designed to be open-ended. However, traditional General Chemistry Laboratory courses often lack opportunities for students to design their own experiments, instead opting to provide…

Highly efficient microwave-assisted organic synthesis is now commonplace in both industry and academia. Recently, a conductively heated sealed-vessel reactor was introduced that acts very similarly to a microwave reactor and is more affordable. Application of such reactors in teaching laboratories is advantageous because of the restricted window…

In this article we describe the construction of a low-cost electronic device to adapt the widespread traditional approach of Analytical Chemistry teaching into laboratory experimentation based on the guided research model. To this aim we construct a portable electronic instrument based on the Arduino microcontroller and use it to develop various…

Reports of the results of research within the emerging field of biochemistry education are appearing at an ever-increasing rate. Capturing an image of the landscape of Biochemistry Education Research (BCER) is complicated, however, by the interdisciplinary nature of biochemistry courses that may be taught at different levels and in different…

In general, undergraduate experimental physics laboratories do not usually have experiments designed to address rolling friction and to measure the value of the rolling friction coefficient. This work explores an experiment, which has the potential to arouse students' curiosity about rolling friction by addressing a counterintuitive aspect of the…

A simple, repeatable and inexpensive laboratory practice applied to teach and discuss aquatic metal pollution and oxidative stress detoxification mechanisms through biomarker analyses, as well as important ecotoxicology concepts, is presented herein. It has been implemented in a university in Brazil to both undergraduate and Master's and PhD…

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has become a cornerstone tool for studying a variety of molecular features in advanced chemistry laboratories. In this experiment, students prepare a pyrrole-[beta]-amide via a one-pot, three-step synthesis and use NMR spectroscopy to confirm its molecular structure. In addition, variable temperature…

Whether it is prolonged strike action, a protest movement, or a global viral outbreak, the disruptions triggered in higher education are profound. In a STEM subject, laboratory classes are vital to teaching and learning. Chemistry educators had to transport laboratory skills-based teaching and assessment of courses to the virtual world at short…

While the suspension of face-to-face instruction disrupted laboratory components of most chemistry-based classes at the college level, it was notably disruptive to upper-level chemistry courses based solely on laboratory experiences. This communication describes the logistical and pedagogical efforts made in an integrated, upper-level,…