General chemistry laboratory programs are tasked with developing a better understanding of chemistry content knowledge and practical skills in experimental chemistry for college students. In order to achieve this task, many laboratory experiments are often one-week-long experiences that are unrelated and required different chemistry concepts, studied via different laboratory techniques. Thus students often fail to realize the interconnection between chemistry concepts, laboratory techniques, and the curriculum design of their learning experience. The work presented herein comes to design laboratory experiences that foster clear connections between laboratory experiments, covering fundamental concepts in chemistry (e.g., density, heat exchange, calorimetry, rate of cooling) via multiple laboratory techniques. In these laboratories, collected data during one experiment is fundamental to support future analyses, thus the design implicitly guides students into developing an overarching comprehension of the chemical phenomenon being studied. The laboratory experiments focused on materials that are robust (e.g., thermally stable, durable, reusable) and provide reproducible data (e.g., density, heat capacity, cooling curves), making the process of investigation easily completed within the timeframe of the laboratory. For example, one of the designed laboratories utilizes copper alloys with three metals (i.e., Sn, Zn, Al) of varying composition in order to understand the factors that affect the cooling of the metal alloys. To complete the laboratory experience, students need to collect data from many samples and shared their collective results for all the class to compile and interpret. In this way, the laboratory experience is better aligned with several desired goals of laboratory education put forth by the National Research Council in 2005: “development of scientific reasoning, understanding of the nature of science, developing practical skills, and supporting mastery of subject matter.” Examples of the laboratory procedures, data, and results will be presented and discussed in light of their design and implementation for the General Chemistry laboratory program at Sam Houston State University.

Design of laboratory experiences in material science and nanotechnology for cooperative project-based experimentation in general chemistry

255th National Meeting (2018)

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