ERIC Number: EJ1290258
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Mar
Pages: 6
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-9584
EISSN: N/A
At-Home Real-Life Sample Preparation and Colorimetric-Based Analysis: A Practical Experience outside the Laboratory
Doughan, Samer; Shahmuradyan, Anna
Journal of Chemical Education, v98 n3 p1031-1036 Mar 2021
As teaching laboratories stand empty in light of COVID-19, we extended the practical experience from the laboratory to the safety of the students' homes. We developed a simple, robust, and versatile at-home experiment that teaches solution preparation, calibration curves, real-life sample preparation, and data analysis to second-year analytical chemistry students. Solutions were prepared using common kitchen tools and readily available corn starch, syringes, and trophic iodine for a low cost below $20. A calibration curve for the brightness of corn starch-iodine solutions as a function of starch concentration was prepared. Solutions were imaged using a smartphone camera, and the brightness of each solution was quantified using ImageJ. Starch was extracted from a ripe banana and quantified using the calibration curve. Extending the practical experience to students' homes in the age of COVID-19 not only provides them with a better sense of the real chemistry laboratory they will one day return to but also helps solidify and expand on key concepts learned in the virtual classroom.
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Science Laboratories, Distance Education, Science Experiments, Laboratory Experiments, College Science, COVID-19, Pandemics, School Closing, Undergraduate Study
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 - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A