The cost of infrared cameras has decreased significantly, and it is now time for chemistry educators to incorporate this tool into their teaching. In this article, we provide five ideas for this purpose, exploring the thermal effects/behaviors of some chemical substances using an infrared camera. Experiments involving affordable materials and…

Many physics textbooks describe the way in which a capacitor in an RC circuit charges and discharges over time. A circuit that consists of a capacitor that is connected to a voltage divider as shown in Fig. 1 is commonly addressed, but the textbooks limit the discussion to the time immediately after the switch is closed and a long time after the…

The natural sciences, by their very nature, are based on the exploration of the physical world, and digital mobile devices are considered appropriate to support this exploration (Suárez et al., 2018) since they offer the tools that make this investigation more accessible but also ubiquitous (Crompton et al., 2017). Inquiry-based learning is a…

The ability of students to perform quantitative analysis is a fundamental aspect of analytical chemistry courses and laboratories. In this laboratory experiment, students quantitatively analyze both liquid and solid samples through the use of internal standard calibration and ATR-FTIR spectroscopy. Using a problem-based approach to selecting their…

This paper uses evidence-centered assessment design (ECD) to structure and analyze a laboratory activity where students collect and represent titration curve data to determine acid strength in terms of molarity and dissociation constant. Following principles of multidimensional learning, the activity prompts students to demonstrate knowledge of…

"Artwork scholarship" is defined in this context as a forum for inquiry that involves artful expressions, innovative experimentation and critical propositions informed by aesthetic characteristics as well as customary approaches for the advancement of the arts and education. 'Latitudes' in turn take into account the adaptations of artful…

The pendulum has a great relevance in physics and it has been explored in educational papers from many theoretical or experimental points of view (see, for example, Refs. 1-12 and references therein). Here a method for the measurement of the gravitational acceleration with a large number of trials is presented; we assume that the systematic errors…

Protocol-guided teaching is a student-centered instructional model in which the teacher creates the learning protocol prior to the lesson in order to direct students toward active and autonomous learning. A well-structured learning protocol is essential for the effective application of this instructional paradigm. This article evaluates the…

In our article, "Syntactic complexity effects in sentence production" [Scontras, Badecker, Shank, Lim, & Fedorenko, 2015 (EJ1057757)], we reported two elicited production experiments and argued that there is a cost associated with planning and uttering syntactically complex, object-extracted structures that contain a non-local…

Innovative models of teaching through research have broken the long-held paradigm that core chemistry competencies must be taught with predictable, scripted experiments. We describe here five fundamentally different, course-based undergraduate research experiences that integrate faculty research projects, accomplish ACS accreditation objectives,…

Over the past decade, the development of three-dimensional mammalian cell organization--called human organoids--from stem cells has provided a framework for future clinical therapies. As human organoid research progresses, we also need to keep in mind the cross-cultural and ethical dimensions of human organoids research. Our review article aims to…

Malus's law states that the intensity of light after passing through two polarizers is proportional to the square of the cosine of the angle between the polarizers. We present a simple setup demonstrating this law. The novelty of our work is that we use a multi-turn potentiometer mechanically linked to one of the polarizers to measure the…

Single-outcome experiments are used in the undergraduate instructional laboratory, particularly for large lectures associated with multiple sections of instructional laboratories, due in large part to efficiencies associated with chemical purchases, experiment preparations, and assessments. Despite the practical advantages, single-outcome…

A microwave-promoted synthesis of a carbocyclic curcuminoid has been developed for the undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory curriculum. The experiment features several teaching points: A novel Knoevenagel iminium-mediated condensation forms a highly conjugated, intensely colored natural product. Reaction occurs uniquely at the less acidic…

The Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND) tested a $1 reduction in benefits per $2 earnings increase above the level at which Social Security Disability Insurance benefits drop from full to zero under current law. BOND included a rare and large "population-representative" experiment: It applied the rule to a nationwide, random…