Powerful arguments have been made recently to advocate for the introduction of systems thinking in chemistry education to equip graduates to address sustainability challenges. This contribution describes systems thinking activities and an assessment tool that enables meaningful learning in first-year organic chemistry as students engage with the…

Curriculum-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been shown to increase student retention in STEM fields and are starting to become more widely adopted in chemistry curricula. Here we describe a 10-week CURE that is suitable for a second-semester organic chemistry laboratory course. Students synthesize small molecules and use…

This paper describes the design and implementation of a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) sequence in chemistry that links a lower-division, organic chemistry course to an upper-division, analytical chemistry course. The focus of student research is on blood preservation using trehalose derivatives in order to mimic the…

Educational games have demonstrated that they represent valuable pedagogical instruments, which can contribute to teaching and learning in a gratifying environment. In particular in chemistry courses, an important effort has been made to facilitate complex interrelated concepts in an easy, enjoyable, and sometimes competitive way. "Compounds…

Until now, the concept of metal (0) atomic quantum clusters or nanoclusters (NCs) and their increasing role in nanotechnology due to their novel and exceptional properties in important industrial fields (such as catalysis) has not been included at the education level. Here, syntheses of both metal nanoparticles (NPs) and metal nanoclusters (with…

Are the ways of engaging with the world that students develop through higher education particular to bodies of knowledge they study? In this article, we examine how students' accounts of the discipline of chemistry in England and South Africa changed over the three years of their undergraduate degrees. Based on a longitudinal phenomenographic…

Anthocyanins are natural pigments belonging to the flavonoid family that generate the red, blue, and purple colors of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Their structure and color are dependent on various factors, like the pH. Anthocyanins appear red in acidic, purple in neutral, and blue in basic solutions, making them suitable for use as natural pH…

The mental models students have after engaging in an activity designed to teach infrared (IR) spectroscopy without reliance on IR absorption tables, were characterized. Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews, through open coding, allowed the classification of the mental models as Molecules as Dynamic (MAD), Bonds as Dynamic (BAD),…

As part of COVID-19 preparedness, a student-developed, Android-based app was used as a pre-laboratory learning aid for a molecular modeling laboratory in a first-year general chemistry course. A worksheet activity with trigger codes and questions related to spatial features of transition metal complexes was designed. Using the Transition Metal…

Visualizing molecular conformations and complex compound structures and chemical transformations in 3D is one of the most difficult tasks for undergraduate chemistry students. Modern computational technologies have revolutionized every aspect of our lives, including education. As a result, many researchers and educators are working on enhancing…

Abundant prior research has compared effects of physical and virtual manipulatives on students' conceptual learning. However, most prior research has been based on conceptual salience theory; that is, it has explained mode effects by the manipulative's capability to draw students' attention to conceptually relevant (visual or haptic) features.…

Organosliding is a game adapted from sliding puzzles to teach structural formulas of alkanes to undergraduate students. The goal of this game is to arrange the pieces of the sliding puzzle to form a Kekulé formula of any alkane. The objective is to create as many formulas as students can from one puzzle. The effectiveness of the game was evaluated…

Dispersion forces are ubiquitous in chemistry, yet they are often misunderstood. This article provides background into why they are called dispersion forces and explains how to describe them in terms of time-independent quantum mechanics. The article also describes the breakdown of the multipole series that is often used to describe dispersion…

Multiple chemistry education research studies at the secondary level have characterized students' difficulties regarding a conceptual understanding of the quantum model of the atom. This research explores undergraduate students' interpretations of multiple representations of the atom. Semistructured interviews were conducted with first-year…

With many universities now admitting students into their science programs with little or no prior knowledge of the relevant field, significant challenges arise in the way these fields are introduced. Challenges mount with various preconceived ideas regarding the levels of difficulty, thus necessitating introductory concepts be presented in…