We an assessment instrument similar to the one described was in the supplement for Lorena Tribe & Kim Kostka article is, “Peer-Developed and Peer-Led Labs in General Chemistry” J. Chem. Ed. 2007, 84(6), 1031-1034. I set it up online on the Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) website There were six questions that asked about [...]
Category Archives: Spring 2008 Chemistry Lab
Instructor Evaluation of Peer-Developed Peer-Led Labs
April 29, 2008 – 10:37 am
Positive:
+ There were some real student success stories that would not have happened in the usual laboratory sequence. I felt like all of the student groups really made and effort to put together a quality lab.
+ Whether or not students completely understood the experiments they were developing, they did have an opportunity to think [...]
Week 13: Ugi Synthesis Collaborative Project
April 20, 2008 – 5:38 pm
Crystallization:
This week we harvested crystals from those reactions that gave a precipitate and attempted to obtain a solid from those reactions that had not spontaneously formed a precipitate. The two reaction mixtures with 3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoic acid tended to form precipitates the most readily, but not all of them did. The two reaction mixtures with 2,4,6-trihydroxybenzoic acid [...]
Week 12: The Ugi Synthesis Collaborative Project
April 10, 2008 – 11:29 am
The Ugi reactions are up and running.
The combinations we are investigating are:
students
Aldehyde
Amine
Carboxylic acid
isocyanide
8
3,4-dimethoxybenzaldehyde
methyl
amine
3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoic acid ●monohydrate
p-toluenesulfonyl
methyl isocyanide
5
3,4-dimethoxybenzaldehyde
methyl
amine
2,4,6-trihydroxybenzoic acid ●monohydrate
p-toluenesulfonyl
methyl isocyanide
5
3,5-dimethoxybenzaldehyde
methyl
amine
3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoic acid ●monohydrate
p-toluenesulfonyl
methyl isocyanide
5
3,5-dimethoxybenzaldehyde
methyl
amine
2,4,6-trihydroxybenzoic acid ●monohydrate
p-toluenesulfonyl
methyl isocyanide
The combinations with the gallic acid (3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoic acid) precipitated very quickly. I was a little alarmed about that so I instructed the Wednesday group to weigh out all their compounds first [...]
Week 11: “Synthesis of Aromatic Esters”
April 5, 2008 – 10:59 am
Source(s): This lab was developed from a recent JCE article: Wade P.A.; Rutkowsky S.A.; King D.B. A simple combinatorial experiment based on Fischer esterification - An experiment suitable for the first-semester organic chemistry lab. J Chemical Education 2006, 83(6), 927-928. This, of course, is a version of the ever-popular “banana-oil” lab found in a multitude [...]
Week 11: “Vanillin Synthesis from 4-Hydroxybenzaldehyde”
April 5, 2008 – 10:55 am
Source(s): This lab was developed by a team of students from a recent JCE article: “Vanillin Synthesis from 4-Hydroxybenzaldehyde.” Douglass F. Taber, Shweta Patel, Travis M. Hambleton, and Emma E. Winkel, J. Chem. Educ. 2007, 84, 1158. An online version of the lab was available at http://valhalla.chem.udel.edu/vanillin.pdf
Changes to published procedure
We scaled up the procedure – [...]
Week 10: Synthesis of Isopentyl Acetate (Banana Oil)
March 29, 2008 – 6:40 pm
1) Source(s) This lab was developed by a team of students from a website: “Preparation of Banana Oil” http://cas.bellarmine.edu/chem116a/lab/banana_oil.htm. Many websites and lab manuals have versions of this very same experiment. I performed this experiment in 1979 from Pavia D. L.; Lampman G. M.; Kriz G. S. “Introduction to Organic Laboratory Techniques: a contemporary approach” [...]
Week 9: Synthesis of Azo Dyes
March 26, 2008 – 3:58 pm
The inspiration for this experiment is from: “A Combinatorial Experiment Suitable for Undergraduate Laboratories” by Benjamin W. Gung and Richard T. Taylor. Journal of Chemical Education, Vol 81, No. 11, November 2004.
2) Changes to published procedure
We doubled the quantities used in the JCE article.
The 2.6% aqueous sodium carbonate solution was prepared ahead of time.
The first part [...]
Week 8: Synthesis and Recrystallization of Adipic Acid
March 13, 2008 – 7:40 pm
1) Source(s)
Experiment 5, Doxsee, K. M., & Hutchison, J. E. (2004). Green organic chemistry : Strategies, tools, and laboratory experiments Southbank, Vic., Australia ; United States:
Thomson-Brooks/ColeWebpage discussion of procedure à Greener Education Materials for Chemists: Green Chemistry in the Organic Teaching Laboratory: An Environmentally Benign Synthesis of Adipic Acid.
Sato, Aoki, and Noyori. A “Green” Route [...]
Seeing the invisible
February 17, 2008 – 2:31 pm
Chemistry is the art of seeing what is invisible. Many students came up to me or the laboratory aide and pronounced that their spice steam distillation had produced “nothing.” What they meant was they could not detect anything in their beaker with their eyesight. Their noses, however, could detect the odor of their essential oil. [...]
