As a part of departmental curriculum review, the general chemistry course sequence at a small, liberal arts school located on an urban campus was revised and updated.  Over a period of two years, the laboratory curriculum for the introductory chemistry course sequence was transitioned from a traditional approach, in which we focused on laboratory safety, best practices, and technique execution, to guided-inquiry.  The new laboratory curriculum incorporates Working with Chemistry, a textbook in which the authors designed the laboratory exercises around real-life examples focused on the collection, interpretation, and application of data.  Although content coverage remained roughly the same, the inquiry-based experiments emphasize process, rather than results.  Challenges associated with the implementation of the new curriculum, including both faculty buy-in and student engagement, will be discussed.

Implementation of an inquiry-based laboratory curriculum in general chemistry

245th National Meeting (2013)

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