It is crucial for writing center professionals who discuss community to ask ourselves what we mean by the term as applied to writing centers. In this keynote, I explore various notions of community that are influenced by writing center growth, expansion, and complexity, especially in relation to Iowa's writing center. After relating a personal…

An adipic acid esterification experiment suitable for graduate students has been developed to describe the industrial manufacture of plasticizers. Students first follow the progress of the reaction with simple acid/base titration enabling measurement of the acid number. During the workup of the reaction mixture, they learn how to manage the…

Reported herein is a chemistry experiment integrating polymer chemistry and instrumental analysis for the juniors majoring in chemistry. This experiment has a different scheduling framework than traditional experiments with a fixed lab period and schedule. The students arrange their experiment flexibly and individually. Styrene maleic anhydride…

Here, we present a laboratory activity in which the students work on an analysis of a questioned document that was written with one out of five possible pens. As a forensics study, the activity applied chemistry and analytical chemistry tools to solve the case. The students were able to apply polarity and solubility concepts to select and discard…

Normal phase thin layer chromatography is a widely taught technique in undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory courses. To understand how the technique works, students must have a strong conceptual understanding of polarity and intermolecular forces. Unfortunately, many students have misconceptions regarding how polarity and intermolecular…

A new experiment using laser ablation with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) was designed for chemistry undergraduate students. While most analytical methods only provide information on the amount of the analyte, LA-ICP-MS allows extra information on the distribution of the element in the sample. Because it achieves…

This study sought to examine laboratory-based instruction for pre-service school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers at various institutions across the nation. While research has indicated that laboratory-based instruction in SBAE programs is commonplace (Shoulders & Meyers, 2012), a myriad of literature has noted SBAE teachers are…

Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease is an emerging situation that brought challenges to all sectors, including academia and research. Undergraduate and postgraduate students in biochemistry and molecular biology have been affected significantly due to the recent laboratory closures. Experiments have been suspended for long causing extreme stress to the…

This article describes a straightforward approach to deliver an enzyme assay and kinetics laboratory via online delivery methods in the time of COVID-19.

Single-crystal X-ray structures, melting points, and students' specific rotation results on carvone semicarbazone derivatives are presented with experimental details. Critical parameters are identified to ensure the success of the experiment. Procedures developed here were tested in a laboratory course, consisting of approximately 70 students over…

A recirculating water vacuum pump was constructed from inexpensive materials. The recirculating water vacuum pump has a smaller footprint compared to many commercial models and features a novel, 3D-printed water aspirator pump that also functions with a standard laboratory faucet connection. The performances of both the recirculating water vacuum…

We report a research-enhanced undergraduate laboratory practical in which students synthesize and characterize color-controllable, stable silver nanoparticles for use in a simple catalytic reaction analyzed by UV-vis spectroscopy. The practical has been prepared for students using electronic laboratory notebooks, enables collaborative data…

A new two-step experiment has been designed and developed for the curriculum of the Organic Chemistry Laboratory 2 (CHEM2240L) sophomore course at Xavier University of Louisiana, in New Orleans. Initially, cyclohexanol was converted to cyclohexanone using bleach as the oxidizing agent followed by the formation of the cyclohexanone oxime. However,…

Laboratory classes are a central element of all biochemistry and molecular biology programs. These play a role in developing students' hands-on and technical skills and also offer much more. The design of laboratory classes depends on many factors including the programs the students are enrolled in, the level they are at, employment destinations,…

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is an indispensable technique in the organic chemistry laboratory for elucidation of molecular structure. Miniaturization of NMR technology has attracted attention and acceptance due to a considerable reduction in the cost to acquire and maintain the instrument. The advent of low-field, low-cost, and…