Laboratory work is essential for learning chemistry and developing scientific literacy as it helps students connect theory and practice. At the University of Minnesota, Morris (UMM) the analytical chemistry course currently implements laboratories that individually emphasize and delve deeper into the topics discussed in lecture. This research explores ways to incorporate as many topics, covered in the lectures and previous labs, as possible into the final capstone lab experiment. Several primary literature articles covering laboratory experiments were chosen and tested for how their singular concepts, such as potentiometric titrations, redox reactions, and spectroscopy, would work together in a lab setting. The end result was a modified version of the chemical oxidation demand-focused lab, which uses complexometric titrations and spectroscopy to determine the concentration of iron. In Fall 2016 we collected data from UMM analytical chemistry final exam and laboratory exams to further examine whether students’ performance is increased or decreased compared to previous years. We aim to determine if there is a correlation between completion of the lab and the students understanding of the concepts and to develop a procedure that will be fully implemented by the students doing the capstone lab in Fall 2017.

Everything but the kitchen sink! Development of an analytical chemistry capstone lab testing student understanding of course topics

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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