The introduction of quantitative physical chemistry at the high school level will help to fill a void that is currently present in the high school chemistry curricula. Prior to courses at the college level, few students are exposed to the concepts of energy levels, spectroscopy, and light-matter interactions. In this work, students from three different schools were presented a demonstration on spectroscopy using a portable UV-Vis spectrometer to allow the students to gather spectra.  Using a Likert type questionnaire to measure students' self-reported gains in knowledge, the effectiveness of the demonstration was determined.  For two of the three schools, students reported statistically significant gains in knowledge, while students at the final school reported statistically significant knowledge gains for 8 of the 11 questions.  Teaching high school students basic physical chemistry concepts would help give them a more complete view of chemistry before entering college.

Comparison of emission spectra from various light sources: A physical chemistry education outreach project

255th National Meeting (2018)

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