This work further implements the "elements of inquiry" approach in a first-year undergraduate laboratory course, in a two-part inquiry sequence. In the first part of the sequence, students iteratively develop a "best-practice" TLC procedure. In the second part, students iteratively optimize a simple organic reaction using TLC,…

Works of art have value not only as entertainment and aesthetic expression -- they also externalize features of human cognition that would often otherwise remain hidden. A musical example from the 19th century is a striking case in point. In 1819, Austrian music publisher, editor, and composer Anton Diabelli invited fifty-one of Austria's most…

The American Chemical Society advocates a shift from rule-based to risk-based safety education for chemistry graduates, emphasizing meaningful student engagement in the risk assessment process for laboratory work. To implement this paradigm shift, we introduced RAMP (Recognize Hazards, Assess Risk, Minimize Risk, and Prevent Emergencies)-based…

Both lecture and laboratory courses of biochemistry are important professional courses for undergraduates with biology related majors. Course optimization and update is crucial but challenging, especially for the laboratory course. Although taught separately, here we showed a strategy to bridge the two courses and promote the improvement of both.…

CACAO (Chocolate Across the Curriculum and Outreach) is a vertical curriculum augmentation designed to help students across the ChE undergraduate program. The students use a chocolate-based food engineering lab to make connections between core chemical engineering topics using hands-on and project-based learning. Costs to create this component are…

A digital information explosion has transformed cities' residential and educational markets in ways that are still being uncovered. Although urban stratification scholars have increasingly scrutinized whether emerging digital platforms disrupt or reproduce longstanding segregation patterns, direct links between one theoretically important form of…

[This paper is part of the "Focused Collection on Instructional Labs: Improving Traditions and New Directions."] Recent studies provide evidence that social constructivist pedagogical methods such as active learning, interactive engagement, and inquiry-based learning, while pedagogically more effective, can enable inequities in the…

The interdisciplinary nature, breadth of topics and frequently evolving industries Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) courses engage with make it difficult for one approach to be appropriate in all circumstances. The Advanced Textiles, 4000 level course participating in this study focused mainly on color science, dyes and dyeing, in addition to…

Molecular imprinting technology holds significant potential for applications in chemical analysis and detection. In order to integrate the fundamental knowledge of polymer chemistry, electrochemistry, and analytical chemistry with practical applications and cutting-edge research, we proposed a comprehensive experiment of the preparation,…

We present a simple smartphone-based protocol for the estimation of the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of surfactants. The protocol is based on contact angle measurements from the smartphone-captured images of differently concentrated surfactant solution droplets mounted over a naturally existing or chemically synthesized superhydrophobic…

A collection of four activities for science outreach events was developed to teach middle school students about the temperature dependence of scientific phenomena. Procedures are described for four interactive demonstrations on phase changes, fluorescence, viscosity effects on diffusion, and conductivity. Each hands-on activity helps students…

The flue gas from waste incineration power plants contains high-level zinc species that may deactivate the catalyst for selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of nitrogen oxides (NO[subscript x]) with NH[subscript 3]. A comparison experiment was designed to investigate the effect of different types and Zn/Ce molar ratios on the performance of…

Research exploring students' learning from physical and virtual labs has suggested that on the whole, students learn science content just as well, if not better from virtual labs as they do from physical labs. However, the affordances of physical labs might support the learning of specific skills and competencies that are just as crucial for…

Plants encounter several different threats that affect their well-being during the spring. With chemistry, plants may defend themselves from, for example, excess UV-radiation and herbivores. The defense compounds between plant species vary, which makes it possible to utilize chemistry in identifying the plant species. In this laboratory…

The target of this study is to determine the minimum angle of deviation of a prism which is one of the optical experiments. Thus, the aim is to state the refractive index of a prism. In this context, the Tracker program, which might also be utilized in terms of distance education purposes, was preferred. The videos of the experiments were recorded…