Writing is a key disciplinary practice in STEM used to construct scientific knowledge and communicate research findings. With its role in the scientific process, writing is often incorporated into STEM classrooms to train students in scientific writing. The importance of incorporating writing in STEM classrooms is heightened by the role it can…

This work developed the Flint, Michigan water crisis as a modular case study for teaching traditional analytical chemistry concepts through the medium of environmental justice, power, and equity. An interdisciplinary framework was used to design, implement, and assess the case study in an effort to understand how the deliberate presence of…

University of Michigan--Dearborn offers a one semester, two credit, stand-alone Organic Chemistry Laboratory course aimed at students with an interest in health-related careers. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a campus closure and a subsequent transition to a partially remote laboratory curriculum developed on-the-fly for the Winter 2020 semester…

Owing to the COVID-19 global pandemic, three chemistry instructors at Ferris State University, with no previous online instructional experience, made the abrupt midsemester switch from face-to-face to remote delivery in their respective chemistry courses. This paper discusses the importance of communication during the rapid change to remote…

Because of COVID-19 precautions, instructors worldwide were required to introduce a variety of virtual instruction modes to complete the Spring 2020 semester. Herein we describe parallel efforts in contextualized chemistry courses at two institutions--Carthage College and Central Michigan University. These courses are primarily designed for…

Although teaching laboratories offer students the opportunity to act and think like chemists, in many cases students simply follow written procedures to generate predetermined outcomes. In recent years, there has been a movement toward inquiry-, problem-, and discovery-based learning. In a similar vein, the first-semester introductory organic…

The fundamental structure of a typical mainstream two-semester organic chemistry course, populated mostly by life science majors and taught at universities throughout the United States, has changed little since the 1970s. However, much of the research on learning in organic chemistry has been devoted to characterizing student difficulties of…

Introductory-level laboratory courses provide students with hands-on experience using the discipline's tools and theories. These courses often rely on recipe-based experiments due to the constraints of large enrollments, short lab periods, and the desire to minimize complexity. In addition, covering a breadth of topics can lead to a fragmented…

The introductory chemistry sequence is a common pathway for undergraduates pursuing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and prehealth careers. Student's academic decision-making has far-reaching consequences for their trajectory, including persistence in the major and ultimate career choice. This phenomenon was studied using a survey…

The separation of chamazulene from hydrophilic contaminants present in blue tansy oil provides a visually engaging example of two common techniques: extraction and thin-layer chromatography (TLC). This application uses liquid CO[subscript 2] as a lipophilic solvent to pull a brilliant blue hydrocarbon molecule, chamazulene, out of or through a…

In this paper we discuss how and why core ideas can serve as the framework upon which chemistry curricula and assessment items are developed. While there are a number of projects that have specified "big ideas" or "anchoring concepts", the ways that these ideas are subsequently developed may inadvertently lead to fragmentation…

Online prelaboratory videos and quizzes were prepared for all experiments in CHEM 231, Organic Chemistry I Laboratory. It was anticipated that watching the videos would help students be better prepared for the laboratory, decrease their anxiety surrounding the laboratory, and increase their understanding of the theories and concepts presented.…

Organic chemistry is often promoted as a course designed to cultivate skill in scientific "ways of thinking." Expert organic chemists perceive their field as one in which plausible answers to complex questions are arrived at through analytical thought processes. They draw analogy between problem solving in organic chemistry and diagnosis…

In this paper, we report on the implementation of a novel compute-to-learn pedagogy, which is based upon the theories of situated cognition and meaningful learning. The "compute-to-learn" pedagogy is designed to simulate an authentic research experience as part of the undergraduate curriculum, including project development, teamwork,…

Despite the prevalence of polymers in modern everyday life, there is little introduction to the topic in science education throughout primary or secondary schooling in the United States. Of the few states that do include polymer education, this is only found at the high school level, primarily in biology or chemistry. Over the past year, we have…