Experiments for the Undergraduate Lab

S. Farrell,/. Chem. Educ. 71, 1095-1096 (1994). A Fast Restriction Enzyme Experiment for the Undergraduate Biochemistry Lab. ... 

Material Safety Data Sheets. MSDS are kept both on paper copies and on-line through the undergraduate lab web pages. We recently created an index of all of the paper copies and are in the process of obtaining electronic versions whenever possible. One of our goals is to have each of the course experiments linked to the safety data sheet for the chemicals used in that lab. Our intention is to have our inventory list on-line and have each chemical name linked to the safety data sheet appropriate for it. Currently the best general MSDS on-line resource that we have found is through the Vermont SIRI web site (Stuart, R. 1997 http //siri.org/). 

The American Chemical Society (ACS) offers a number of resources that supplement the curriculum. ACS collaborated with the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker to produce Introduction to Green Chemistry (18 a collection of six units that present key concepts in green chemistry. High-school students are the target audience for this resource, whose units incorporate hands-on activities such as a Vitamin C clock reaction. The ACS lab manual Greener Approaches to Undergraduate Chemistry Experiments (13) is available in both Spanish and Chinese. 

I was an undergraduate physics major, working in the afternoons in a Stanford physics lab. Undergraduate researchers did not have a lot of clout in the department and no one offered me a desk of my own, but my lab key got me into a room full of desks occupied by graduate students, and one of them was empty, so I decided to brazen it out. I lined up my five or six physics text books along the back of the desk, put several pads of engineer-lined blank paper in the center drawer, and moved in. For a year and more, I did my homework at the desk and also did calculations for an experiment I was working on. 

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