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The COVID-19 pandemic forced instructors of chemistry lab classes to develop a variety of alternative materials for remote delivery of traditional hands-on content. One solution to this challenge was virtual choose-your-own-adventure (CYOA) laboratories that allowed students to practice realistic decision-making and collect authentic data. With the return to in-person instruction, these CYOA laboratories can be modified into prelab exercises to support and supplement in-person experiments. Four virtual CYOA laboratories were adapted into prelab exercises for an upper-division instrumental analysis course to prepare students for experiments in chromatography method development and electronic circuit design. Students were surveyed to gauge their opinions on the prelabs and their comfort in the laboratory overall. Survey results indicated that students enjoyed the CYOA prelab activities and found them helpful in feeling prepared for experiments and understanding the source and quality of their experimental data. Students who completed the virtual prelabs met more learning objectives in several important categories on lab reports for two electronic circuit design experiments. Virtual CYOA prelabs may be a good way for instructors to expand the depth of their lab curriculum, improve student learning in the lab, and reduce the anxiety that their students feel before complex experiments.

A student-led mathematics bootcamp has been designed and implemented to help foster community building, improve confidence in mathematical skills, and provide mathematical resources for incoming physical chemistry doctoral students. The bootcamp is held immediately before the start of the first semester of graduate school and uses an active learning approach to review and practice undergraduate-level mathematics problems over 5 days in small student groups. This work includes the development and presentation of a new, publicly available mathematics curriculum for the bootcamp on select mathematics topics, including calculus, linear algebra, functions, differential equations, statistics, and coding in Python, aiming at improving students' confidence and learning experiences in graduate quantum mechanics and statistical physics courses. Surveys before and after the bootcamp showed an increase in students' confidence in problem-solving in key mathematical areas and social aspects of peer-led group learning. Qualitative and quantitative analyses demonstrate that the bootcamp reduced prior inequities in students' confidence metrics based on gender and mathematical background.

Artificial photosynthesis is a promising approach to generate commodity chemicals using abundant chemical feedstocks and renewable energy sources. Despite its importance, affordable and effective hands-on classroom activities that demonstrate artificial photosynthesis and teach key concepts, especially for primary school students, are lacking. Educating young students on this topic is a critical step in the development of the next-generation energy workforce, especially one that is diverse in race and gender. We hypothesize that an effective approach to educate a broad range of young students on the topic of artificial photosynthesis is through the use of an active learning-based lesson plan that employs cheap and accessible materials. This hypothesis is confirmed by evaluating the understanding of fifth grade students with a survey before and after a lesson plan on artificial photosynthesis that uses active-learning techniques and uses safe and highly accessible materials (baking soda, tap water, plastic jars, Ni coil, alligator clips, and a solar cell) to perform solar-powered water splitting. The lesson plan and survey questions are designed to align with the educational outcomes for fifth grade classrooms in California and to address four general learning objectives: (1) Motivations of Artificial Photosynthesis, (2) Applications of Artificial Photosynthesis, (3) Inputs and Outputs of Artificial Photosynthesis, and (4) Engineering Design for Artificial Photosynthesis. The survey data demonstrate a statistically significant improvement in overall student understanding from the lesson plan. Importantly, the data show that the lesson plan presented here is effective at narrowing the performance gap between minority students and overly represented groups.

The rise of virtual and online education in recent years has led to the development and popularization of many online tools, notably three-dimensional (3D) models and augmented reality (AR), for visualizing various structures in chemical sciences. The majority of the developed tools focus on either small molecules or biological systems, as information regarding their structure can be easily accessed from online databases or obtained through relatively quick calculations. As such, due to a lack of crystallographic and theoretical data available for nonbiological macromolecules, there is a noticeable lack of accessible online tools for the visualization of polymers in 3D. Herein, using a few sample polymers, we showcase a workflow for the generation of 3D models using molecular dynamics and Blender. The 3D structures can then be hosted on p3d.in, where AR models can be generated automatically. Furthermore, the hosted 3D models can then be shared via quick response (QR) codes and used in various settings without the need to download any applications.

In view of the mounting requirements for courses in nuclear chemistry and radiochemistry, hands-on experience in the separations of radioisotopes is imperative. Three separation techniques commonly used were introduced, coprecipitation, liquid-liquid extraction, and ion-exchange chromatography. Their principles and the associated fundamental thermodynamic concepts are detailed. Their respective experimental applications to the separations of radioisotopes of one rare earth element (europium) and two transition metals (cobalt and nickel) are discussed. In-classroom experimental settings are proposed, and experiment outcomes are presented, which can be beneficial for future implementation within nuclear chemistry and radiochemistry programs in higher education.

Laboratory chemical synthesis research typically lacks the preplanned hazard responses found in production-scale industrial laboratories. Chemical safety management is a known challenge in education-based facilities, which is concerning for academic and national laboratory environments working with inexperienced student researchers. At the Molecular Foundry, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) user facility, a chemical safety management form has been developed that follows DOE’s Integrated Safety Management (ISM) process, which evaluates the risks and hazards associated with all forms of work. An ISM form for chemical synthesis is described here in detail. It is regularly used to guide chemical safety discussions between researchers and supervisors, to plan accident responses, and to establish triggers, at which point a reevaluation of the work is needed. The form makes it straightforward to know what limits researchers may work within and makes it clear which procedure changes will require a new safety assessment and discussion before work continues. The ISM form for synthesis is being successfully used in three fields of chemistry: Inorganic, Organic, and Biological. The form has also been adapted for liquid sample preparation in electron microscopy. Upper management, supervisors, students, and general users are engaged in this process. It is hoped that sharing this knowledge will enable educational institutions and other laboratories to develop similar methods to help researchers and supervisors understand the hazards as well as the working limits of any protocol, helping researchers to work more independently and safely within the laboratory.

This paper describes the creation of a theme-based first quarter, of a two quarter sequence, general chemistry laboratory course following an argument driven inquiry format and employing specifications grading. The course contains four, two-week projects investigating the chemistry of a popular sports drink. The sugar content, dye concentration, buffering capacity, and the kinetics of dye decomposition are investigated for various flavors of Gatorade. Specifications grading is used to foster teamwork and to provide an opportunity for revision and resubmission of student work. A modified LCAS survey measured student perception of course content.

Ultrafast laser pump-probe spectroscopy is an important and growing field of physical chemistry that allows the measurement of chemical dynamics on their natural time scales, but undergraduate laboratory courses lack examples of such spectroscopy and the interpretation of the dynamics that occur. Here we develop and implement an ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy experiment for the undergraduate physical chemistry laboratory course at the University of California Berkeley. The goal of the experiment is to expose students to concepts in solid-state chemistry and ultrafast spectroscopy via classic coherent phonon dynamics principles developed by researchers over multiple decades. The experiment utilizes a modern high-repetition-rate 800 nm femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser, split pulses with a variable time delay, and sensitive detection of transient reflectivity signals using the lock-in technique. The experiment involves minimal intervention from students and is therefore easy and safe to implement in the laboratory. Students first perform an intensity autocorrelation measurement on the femtosecond laser pulses to obtain their temporal duration. Then, students measure the pump-probe reflectivity of a single-crystal antimony sample to determine the period of coherent phonon oscillations initiated by an ultrafast pulse excitation, which is analyzed by fitting to a sine wave. Students who completed the experiment in-person obtained good experimental results, and students who took the course remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic were provided with the data they would have obtained during the experiment to analyze. Evaluation of student written and oral reports reveals that the learning goals were met, and that students gained an appreciation for the field of ultrafast laser-induced chemistry.

In the sciences, the laboratory is one of the most impactful spaces for student learning, engagement, and experience. Prior knowledge gleaned during lecture and laboratory discussion (i.e., a course section designed to further emphasize conceptual content underlying experiments and inform students about laboratory procedures or safety precautions) acts to supplement laboratory performance. With the recent increase in offering traditionally face-to-face courses in remote formats, many educators in the field of organic chemistry have opted to offer online laboratory discussion (LD) sections alongside more traditional face-to-face laboratory discussions. However, research on enrollment in laboratory discussions by modality, as well as their impact on subsequent course performance, is lacking. Conducting a logistic regression analysis, we found that females, students who identified as Black or African American, those with greater average ACT-SAT equivalency scores, and those students who completed organic chemistry LD online in the prior term all had greater odds of enrolling in an online organic chemistry LD course in subsequent academic terms. Additional hierarchical regression analyses indicated that many student- and academic-level factors were predictive of laboratory performance. Notably, when controlling student-level and academic-level characteristics, laboratory performance was higher for students who completed LD online compared to students who enrolled in face-to-face LDs. This study has important implications for students as they uptake courses in online settings and faculty as they decide what portions of their courses to offer remotely.

Gold nanoparticles are exciting materials in nanotechnology and nanoscience research and are being applied across a wide range of fields including imaging, chemical sensing, energy storage, and cancer therapies. In this experiment, students will synthesize two sizes of gold nanospheres (~20 nm and ~100 nm) and will create gold nanostars utilizing a seed-mediated growth synthetic approach. Students will compare how each sample interacts differently with light (absorption and scattering) based on the nanoparticles' size and shape. This experiment is ideal for high-school and early undergraduate students since all reagents are non-toxic, affordable, and no special characterization equipment is required.

While cheminformatics skills necessary for dealing with an ever-increasing amount of chemical information are considered important for students pursuing STEM careers in the age of big data, many schools do not offer a cheminformatics course or alternative training opportunities. This paper presents the Cheminformatics Online Chemistry Course (OLCC), which is organized and run by the Committee on Computers in Chemical Education (CCCE) of the American Chemical Society (ACS)'s Division of Chemical Education (CHED). The Cheminformatics OLCC is a highly collaborative teaching project involving instructors at multiple schools who teamed up with external chemical information experts recruited across sectors, including government and industry. From 2015 to 2019, three Cheminformatics OLCCs were offered. In each program, the instructors at participating schools would meet face-to-face with the students of a class, while external content experts engaged through online discussions across campuses with both the instructors and students. All the material created in the course has been made available at the open education repositories of LibreTexts and CCCE Web sites for other institutions to adapt to their future needs.

Women and some racial and ethnic groups remain underrepresented in chemistry departments across the United States, and generally, efforts to improve representation have resulted in minimal or no improvements in the last 10 years. Here, we present the outcomes of a graduate-student-led initiative that sought to assess the issues affecting inclusivity, diversity, and wellness within the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. We report how the results of a department-tailored academic climate survey were used to develop a method to foster open, productive discussion among graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty. This event format led to an improved understanding of the challenges facing our community members, as well as the identification of strategies that can be used to make the Department of Chemistry more welcoming for all members. We report the success of this student-led effort to highlight the value of assessing diversity and inclusion at the department-level, as well as the benefits of using community data to stimulate productive, evidence-based discussions. Furthermore, we envision that these methods can be implemented within any research-focused academic community to promote positive cultural change.

Participating in undergraduate research yields positive outcomes for undergraduate students, and universities are seeking ways to engage more students in undergraduate research earlier in their academic careers. Typically, undergraduate students perform research either as part of an apprenticeship where a student receives individual mentorship in a research lab setting from an experienced researcher in the field of interest or in a course-based undergraduate research experience where students work in a classroom or teaching laboratory to investigate open-ended research questions. In this work, we implement a model of undergraduate research that combines aspects of those two methods to provide benefits to undergraduate students and research groups. A cohort of 20 first-year undergraduate students at the University of California-Berkeley were recruited to work on a project investigating data previously collected by the Alivisatos research group. Over a semester, these students learned about nanomaterials and the research process, pursued curiosity-driven research in teams, and presented their results at a formal poster session. Students from this program showed quantifiable gains in their self-identification as researchers and scientists. This program was developed to be a model for other research groups, departments, and universities to combine the benefits of traditional apprenticeship research and course-based undergraduate research to provide a research experience for large numbers of undergraduate students early in their college education.

A visual aid teaching tool, the DanceChemistry video series, has been developed to teach fundamental chemistry concepts through dance. These educational videos portray chemical interactions at the molecular level using dancers to represent chemical species. Students reported that the DanceChemistry videos helped them visualize chemistry ideas in a new and memorable way. Surveying the general laboratory course at the University of California, Irvine (n = 1266), 75% of the students said they wanted to use these videos to learn additional chemistry topics in the future. Data from pre- and postsurveys show an increase in students' average scores after watching a 5 min DanceChemistry video. These instructional videos are disseminated broadly through a dedicated YouTube channel, DanceChemistry.

A modern undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory experiment involving the Suzuki-Miyaura coupling is reported. Although Suzuki-Miyaura couplings typically employ palladium catalysts in environmentally harmful solvents, this experiment features the use of inexpensive nickel catalysis, in addition to a "green" alcohol solvent. The experiment employs heterocyclic substrates, which are important pharmaceutical building blocks. Thus, this laboratory procedure exposes students to a variety of contemporary topics in organic chemistry, including transition metal-catalyzed cross-couplings, green chemistry, and the importance of heterocycles in drug discovery, none of which are well represented in typical undergraduate organic chemistry curricula. The experimental protocol uses commercially available reagents and is useful in both organic and inorganic instructional laboratories.