Teaching laboratory manuals

Dechsri, R, Jones, L. L., Heikkinen, H. W. (1997). Effeet of a laboratory manual design incorporating visual information-processing aids on student learning and attitudes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 34(9), 891-904. 

Classical laboratory, manual methods conducted on a macro-scale where sample quantities arc in the range of grams and several milliliters. These are the techniques that developed from the earliest investigations of chemistry and which remain effective for teaching the fundamentals of analysis. However, these methods continue to be widely used in industry and research, particularly where there is alarge variety of analytical work to be performed. The equipment, essentially composed of analytical balances and laboratory glassware, tends to be of a universal nature and particularly where budgets for apparatus are limited, the relative modest cost of such equipment is attractive. 

Germann P J, Haskins S, and Auls S (1996) Analysis of nine high school biology laboratory manuals Promoting scientific inquiry. J Res Sci Teach 33(5) 475 99. 

Chemical Toxicity. In chemistry courses students learn a lot about what a chemical can do for them, but they know woefully little about what a chemical can do to them This deficiency in their chemical education is a result of standard and currently recommended academic practices. (For example, almost all new laboratory manuals in general and organic chemistry have eliminated the use of benzene and dichromate because of their carcinogenic status.) For reasons of safety and economy teaching laboratories tend to make use of small amounts of reagents with minimum toxicity, and use low-risk procedures, such as microscale. Students have only a single or at most a few exposures to any one chemical, and learning about a chemical s toxicity is minimal. These procedures often continue into advanced courses, and even research projects. Spills and waste disposal are handled by the instructors. 

OSHA mandated Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) contain important safety information that should be incorporated into undergraduate chemistry instruction. Ho>vever, these documents are not well designed for the academic teaching laboratory. Additionally, there is little or no coverage of MSDSs in chemistry laboratory manuals or textbooks. One approach to the incorporation of this topic this is the introduction of a student exercise that involves the preparation of an experiment-specific laboratory chemical safety summary (LCSS) based on the LCSSs presented in the latest edition of Prudent Practices in the Laboratory (1). These one-page student-prepared summaries use information obtained from MSDSs, but are modified to the actual quantities, concentrations, and procedures used in the experiment. This approach provides beginning chemistry students with appropriate education about MSDSs. 

For me, nothing illustrates this chasm between observation and chemical theory better than my experiences as a teaching assistant in the laboratory of a beginning chemistry course. Students were carefully following procedures described in the lab manuals, filling in the blanks to describe their observations. Then as a kind of climax they were asked to Write the equation for this reaction. Students were often stunned by this request, for they could perceive no connection between what they had observed and the equation they were expected to write. This gap between the perceptual experience of events and their conceptual representation is wider and deeper than for any other of the basic sciences. That fact in large part accounts for the late arrival of chemistry at its maturity, with the work of John Dalton early in the nineteenth century. 

Apart from her teaching activities, Freund performed research on the theory of solutions that culminated in a substantial paper, and in 1904 she addressed the Cambridge University Chemistry Club on the topic of double salts.36 Her most renowned work, however, was a chemistry text, The Study of Chemical Composition,37 which remained popular for many years.38 The historian of chemistry, M. M. Pattison Muir, commented that her text is to be classed among the really great works of chemical literature, 39 and the book itself was reprinted in 1968 as a classic in the history of chemistry.40 Then in 1904, she wrote a manual of laboratory procedures, The Experimental Basis of Chemistry, which could be used to illustrate chemical concepts.41... 

You may be allowed to take your laboratory reports and other texts into the practical exam. Don t assume that this is a soft option, or that revision is unnecessary you will not have time to read large sections of your reports or to familiarize yourself with basic principles etc. The main advantage of open-book exams is that you can check specific details of methodology, reducing your reliance on memory, provided you know your way around your practical manual. In all other respects, your revision and preparation for such exams should be similar to theory exams. Make sure you are familiar with all of the practical exercises, including any work carried out in class by your partner (since exams are assessed on individual performance). Check with the teaching staff to see whether you can be given access to the laboratory, to complete any exercises that you have missed. 

Introduction to Green Chemistry, edited by Ryan and Tinnesand 28) [HS], This teaching manual contains a collection of laboratory activities that illustrate the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry. For a book review, see ref 29. 

Scientific studies carried out at the department enabled to enrich the educational process with new textbooks, teaching materials, equipment for laboratory and field works. Prof. V.D. Lomtadze s textbooks are widely known not only in Russia, but also abroad, they are translated in Vietnam, the Czech Republic, Germany and Georgia. For example, in 1975 in Chinese was published the manual Methods of laboratory tests of physical and mechanical properties of rocks. Late in his life Valery Davidovich Lomtadze wrote the Dictionary in Engineering Geology which was released after his death in 1999. 

This book is designed for siiidems of biotechnology and is suitable as a course manual in academic and professional education programs and may also be used for self-study and review. Tried and tested experiments from each area are assembled around a common theme. The experiments not only teach valuable skills, but also demonstrate the research process used in biotechnology laboratories. 

Fifty new spectroscopy problems— in addition to the many spectroscopy problems in the text— have been added to the Study Guide/Solutions Manual.The spectroscopy chapters (Chapters 14 and 15) are written so they can be covered at any time during the course. For those who prefer to teach spectroscopy at the beginning of the course—or in a separate laboratory course—there is a table of functional groups at the beginning of Chapter 14. 

---