Laboratory curriculum

Rudd II, J. A., Greenbowe, T. J., Hand, B. M., Legg, M. J. (2001). Using the science writing heuristic to move toward an inquiry-based laboratory curriculum An example from physical cquilihnum. Journal of Chemical Education, 78, 1680-1686. 

SUPPORT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION of new courses and laboratories in materials science is available through National Science Foundation programs in both the Division of Undergraduate Education and the Division of Materials Research. The Division of Undergraduate Education has separate programs targeting laboratory, curriculum, and faculty. 

At UCI, she teaches graduate-level courses in atmospheric chemistry on a regular basis. In addition, she teaches such classes as undergraduate instrumental analysis, in which she is developing a new laboratory curriculum centered around the analysis of complex environmental mixtures. This work has been supported by the Dreyfus Foundation and UCI. 

In 1993 Richard W. Schwenz and Robert J. Moore published a book, under the auspices of the American Chemical Society, entitled Physical Chemistry Developing a Dynamic Curriculum (/). This book followed a 1988 project by the Pew Mid-Atlantic Cluster on revision of the physical chemistry laboratory curriculum, and NSF funded workshops in 1990 and 1991 on physical chemistry curriculum development. Together they called for substantial changes in the content of the physical chemistry lab. 

The Schwenz and Moore book called for inclusion of modem laboratory instrumentation and techniques, as well as modem research topics in the laboratory curriculum. Under the umbrella of modem instrumentation, the authors included experiments with lasers, mass spectrometers and cyclic voltammetry. In modem topics, computational chemistry, experiments with biological relevance, atmospheric chemistry and polymer chemistry were... 

X-ray diffraction has been a part of the physical chemistry laboratory curriculum for a long time, but mostly using the relatively simple powder diffraction technique. However a new experiment introduces the more complex method of single crystal X-ray diffraction (80). Another new experiment uses the technique to investigate the structure of alloys (81). 

The growth of computational chemistry and the ready availability of commercial ab initio packages has had a dramatic effect on the way that physical chemistry is practiced in the contemporary research laboratory. The clear implication is that without integration of computational chemistry into our physical chemistry laboratory curriculum we will be failing to teach our students how contemporary research is conducted. Fortunately, a number of approaches to including computational chemistry in the physical chemistry laboratory have been developed. These range from modifications of the full course to individual computational chemistry exercises for the laboratory. These developments can be found in Table VII. 

Integrating Computational Chemistry into the Physical Chemistry Laboratory Curriculum A Wet Lab/Dry Lab Approach 91... 

By the late 20th century, continued calls for the revision of the physical chemistry curriculum were being heard (2-8). These calls were for a significant modernization of both the lecture and laboratory curriculum involving an inclusion of modem research topics into the lecture and the laboratory, the deletion or movement of selected material into other courses, and a reduction in the writing requirements for the laboratory. More specifically, the need for experiments and discussion relating to the incorporation of laser and computer technology has intensified with the spread of these devices into all the chemistry subdisciplines. The ACS published a selection of modernized experiments in an earlier volume (5). 

The Center for Authentic Science Practice in Education Integrating Science Research into the Undergraduate Laboratory Curriculum... 

We are striving to develop a new laboratory curriculum that provides students with a short-term authentic research experience. Our research shows that achieving this goal requires excellent instructional materials, instructor understanding of the curriculum s goals, and thorough TA preparation. When these components are present, students receive an educational experience that they can really be involved in. The curriculum gives students the autonomy to decide how best to answer their research question, and their work is relevant in a much broader context than available in traditional chemistry laboratory curricula. 

The research-based approach to laboratory education achieves many educators goals for the undergraduate laboratory curriculum (Nagda et al. 1998 Wenzel 2003 Lopatto 2004 Seymour et al. 2004), such as increasing student motivation (Module author 4) and developing an interest in the topic (Student 4). CASPiE modules place the students laboratory work in the context of ongoing scientific research and, in turn, increase student motivation for the laboratory work. Students acquire hands-on laboratory skills as they carry out their experiments. 

Russell, C. B. (2008) Development and evaluation of a research-based undergraduate laboratory curriculum. PhD dissertation, Purdue University. 

Although the green laboratory curriculum is presently most developed for the field of organic chemistry, there are also green experiments for the introductory and analytical chemistry laboratories. For nearly a decade, the... 

A straightforward preparation for an air-stable silver carbene complex using a standard wet chemistry kit was presented. This experiment removed the tedious requirements of a carbene synthesis and allows for the inclusion of carbenes and carbene transfer agents in the undergraduate laboratory curriculum. 

Although many laboratory manuals incorporate novel concepts, modem instrumentation, and new techniques, these advances in curriculum development were not accompanied by a corresponding shift in pedagogy towards incorporating inquiry. The analysis of 229 individual laboratory activities revealed that nearly 90% of the experiments were highly structured Level 0 or Level /z laboratories, as shown in Table 4. The vast majority of experiments, n = 191 out of 229 or 83%, were classified as Level /z structured inquiry. The only Level 2 open inquiry chemistry experiments (n = 5) we found were contained in Inquiries into Chemistry [10]. While the K-12 science curriculum in the USA moves towards the incorporation of inquiry, we found that the college chemistry laboratory curriculum remains entrenched in confirmation and structured inquiry levels. 

The rubric may also assist faculty in developing laboratories with a greater degree of student independence. It can be used to evaluate the trajectories of inquiry across a course, program, or department. The path traced out by the laboratory curriculum may be modified to address departmental or programmatic goals. Thus, the rubric provides a route to data-driven practices. 

An intramolecular photochemical cycloaddition suggested for inclusion in the undergraduate laboratory curriculum couples a ground-state Diels-Alder reaction with the sunlight-induced cage formation of (13a) from the crystals of the thermal adduct (14a),7 as depicted in Scheme 1. Marchand and Allen8 have reported an improved synthesis of the pentacycloundecane (15) using the photochemical intramolecular cycloaddition of the dienedione (14b), which was achieved in 86% yield by acetone-sensitized irradiation. 

The Heck coupling is an example of another key metal-catalyzed transformation. Again, this has been incorporated into the undergraduate laboratory curriculum in conjunction with the use of microwave heating (Scheme 6.20). Similar conditions to those developed for the Suzuki reaction were used with either palladium acetate (0.4 mol%) or palladium chloride (ICP standard, 0.004 mol%) as catalyst. 

Keywords cognitive science, computer-based learning, evaluation, kinematics, laboratory curriculum, mechanics, Microcomputer-Based Laboratory, physical intuition, physics, probes... 

Keywords E2LP Ranote laboratory Curriculum integration Embedded systems... 

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