ERIC Number: EJ1458739
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024-Apr
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-9584
EISSN: EISSN-1938-1328
The Laboratory Skills Contest: An Activity to Improve and Evaluate Students' Laboratory Practice through the Determination of Water Hardness
Jixin Wang; Wenshui Zhou; Yin Li; Mei Yu; Zheng Zhu
Journal of Chemical Education, v101 n4 p1758-1765 2024
By hosting a college students' laboratory skills contest, we provide an interesting activity for students to cultivate good laboratory practices and thereby improve their laboratory skills. The substance of this contest is the detection of the hardness of water, which involves numerous laboratory skills such as solution preparation, weight by difference mass measurements, glassware calibration, pipetting, quantitative transfer, titration, data processing, and cleaning up the laboratory. Initially, due to limited class time, students are unable to master and practice effectively the skills taught in class. Many students wanted to practice these skills at a time after class, and these skills were subsequently redesigned and organized as an extracurricular activity to involve more students. Skills are assigned to students depending on their year: freshmen act as lab assistants to prepare solutions, such as EDTA-2Na, hydrochloric acid, ammonia, and indicators. This is a simple skill that aims to build confidence in mastering chemical experiments, as such experiments are rarely conducted in high school. Sophomores conducted experiments as contestants. Through the contest, students' laboratory skills are improved and evaluated. The task for senior students is to provide guidance to freshmen and sophomores, identify their mistakes, and demonstrate the correct operations. All of the students collaborated to complete this activity.
Descriptors: Undergraduate Students, Chemistry, Science Instruction, Laboratory Experiments, Laboratory Procedures, Laboratory Training, Science Activities, Science Experiments, Science Laboratories, Water, Water Quality, Student Evaluation
Division of Chemical Education, Inc. and ACS Publications Division of the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 800-227-5558; Tel: 202-872-4600; e-mail: eic@jce.acs.org; Web site: http://pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A