Nowadays the majority of young people are exposed to a wide and constantly rising range of stimuli by different media. This sensory overload leads to higher stress levels and therefore decreases the ability to concentrate and focus. Laboratory work, however, requires high concentration in order to achieve reliable results under safe conditions.…

This work presents an outline for a full-quartile design-based learning laboratory-based course suitable for final year Bachelor's students. The course has been run for 5 years in the department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. The course attempts to provide a complete laboratory experience for its students, including an authentic research…

Synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials yields opportunities for instruction of related topics in solution chemistry and materials science, as well as spectroscopy connecting to band theory, the "particle in a box" quantum mechanical model, and thermodynamics. In collaboration with an undergraduate research assistant, we have…

Herein we present a modified iodine clock experiment which replaces starch with cellulose paper. This provides the reaction with a white solid surface in which color change can be clearly observed and reduces reagent amounts required to 540 µL per group. After data acquisition, students are required to calculate reaction orders and the reaction…

Process analytical technologies (PATs) are used in the pharmaceutical and other industries to monitor chemical processes in real-time with analytical instrumentation. Each PAT analyzer brings its own advantages and disadvantages to the process, and multiplexing PAT analyzers can be advantageous as they can provide confirmatory measurements and…

In this article, we describe how the Gaussian Gun, a simple configuration of magnets and ball bearings, can be leveraged to connect ideas from physics to representations and ideas that are central to chemistry and challenging for students to learn. In particular, we show how the Gaussian Gun, an arrangement of ball bearings and magnets, models…

An integrated lab-lecture project, known as the mini research project, was developed for a medicinal chemistry course for nonscience majors. In the lecture component of this project, students choose a plant essential oil with documented biological activity and prepare a literature review describing the importance, history, and current use of the…

This work reports a rudimentary approach to teach and measure the kinetic friction coefficient using a smartphone that can effectively be employed for teaching purposes. More specifically, the kinetic friction coefficient, which is rather difficult to teach and measure, between various surfaces was determined by two different approaches using the…

Although hands-on laboratory experiments are traditionally used in schools, virtual laboratories have entered today's classrooms, due to their specific affordances. In this study, we compared the effect of using hands-on and virtual laboratories in isolation to two different combinations on middle school (7th grade) students' acquisition of…

Statistical process control (SPC) is used in the chemical industry to monitor manufacturing and laboratory processes to ensure quality and compliance with regulatory requirements. Control charts are a key tool used in this monitoring. Industrial job postings desire experience with SPC. Most undergraduates entering the workforce have no exposure,…

The use of methanol-water mixtures as solvents for sample preparations is common in many instrumental analytical procedures for compound quantification at trace concentration levels. The reliability of the analytical method depends upon several factors including consistency of instrumental setup and calibration, quality of standards used and…

Chromatography is a ubiquitous technique in analytical chemistry, and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is the industry standard for quantitation of components in solution mixtures. However, demonstrating the principles of liquid chromatography to undergraduates via HPLC-based experiments often proves ineffective because of the fully…

Student-built photometers are recognized as being useful tools in teaching laboratories that help students understand the concepts behind experimental measurements, and several devices have been reported that employ photoresistors as the detector of choice. We demonstrate here an improvement over these instruments and the analyses thereof,…

This laboratory experiment demonstrates the important utility of transition-metal complexes as catalysts in the addition reaction of carbon tetrabromide (CBr ) to select alkenes. This application offers students the opportunity to understand why transition-metal complexes are worth synthesizing. The experiment builds on fundamental theories…

A five-day discovery-based summer workshop for incoming ninth graders was designed and conducted at the University of Cincinnati (UC). The idea was to have an inquiry-based, research-driven laboratory experience where students were provided with a mentor who encouraged creativity and inquisitiveness. Over a period of three years, 33 students…