Celebrating the International Year of Crystallography
The December 2014 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online to subscribers. The December issue includes content on: crystallography, assessment, career development for undergraduates, problem solving in organic chemistry, and teaching physical chemistry. This latest issue of JCE plus the content of all past issues, volumes 1 through 91, are available.
Editorial
Norbert Pienta, Editor-in-Chief, reviews and highlights content in Volume 91 (2014) of the Journal of Chemical Education.
Crystals and Crystallography
Cover
The International Year of Crystallography highlights the role that crystallography and structural analysis have played in many fields, including chemistry, physics, biology, and mineralogy, and throughout 2014 and beyond, the crystallographic community has organized events to engage the public in understanding crystallography and its importance. The cover features a selection of competition-winning crystals of copper sulfate pentahydrate grown by students as described in Celebrating the International Year of Crystallography with a Wisconsin High School Crystal Growing Competition by Ilia A. Guzei. Offering a historical perspective for understanding crystallography and its importance, Simona Galli discusses the fundamental contributions of X-ray crystallography made during the last century in chemistry, physics, and medicine in X-ray Crystallography: One Century of Nobel Prizes.
Exploring Gold Chemistry
The Late Start and Amazing Upswing in Gold Chemistry ~Helgard G. Raubenheimer and Hubert Schmidbaur
Understanding Structure
Exploring Electrochromics: A Series of Eye-Catching Experiments To Introduce Students to Multidisciplinary Research ~Leo J. Small, Steven Wolf, and Erik D. Spoerke
Illusions of Space: Charting Three Dimensions ~Leslie Glasser
An Inquiry-Based Learning Approach to the Introduction of the Improper Rotation–Reflection Operation, Sn ~John P. Graham
Reform in General Chemistry
Investigating the Longitudinal Impact of a Successful Reform in General Chemistry on Student Enrollment and Academic Performance ~Scott E. Lewis
Assessment
The Testing Effect: An Intervention on Behalf of Low-Skilled Comprehenders in General Chemistry ~ Daniel T. Pyburn, Samuel Pazicni, Victor A. Benassi, and Elizabeth M. Tappin
Comparison of High School Dual-Enrollment and Traditional First-Term General/Organic/Biochemistry College Chemistry Class Outcomes ~Daniel R. Zuidema and Kevin J. Eames
Developing an Array Binary Code Assessment Rubric for Multiple-Choice Questions Using Item Arrays and Binary-Coded Responses ~Elizabeth K. Haro and Luis S. Haro
Using Errors To Teach through a Two-Staged, Structured Review: Peer-Reviewed Quizzes and “What’s Wrong With Me?” ~Brian P. Coppola and Jason K. Pontrello
Career Development for Undergraduates
A Three-Year Chemistry Seminar Program Focusing on Career Development Skills ~Valerie K. Tucci, Abby R. O’Connor, and Lynn M. Bradley
Embedding Graduate Attributes at the Inception of a Chemistry Major in a Bachelor of Science ~Sarah A.M. Windsor, Kerry Rutter, David B. McKay, and Noel Meyers
A Survey of Industrial Organic Chemists: Understanding the Chemical Industry’s Needs of Current Bachelor-Level Graduates ~Justin D. Fair, Elyse M. Kleist, and Dylan M. Stoy
Aligning the Undergraduate Organic Laboratory Experience with Professional Work: The Centrality of Reliable and Meaningful Data ~Peter J. Alaimo, Joseph M. Langenhan, and Ian T. Suydam
Problem Solving in Organic Chemistry
Synthesis–Spectroscopy Roadmap Problems: Discovering Organic Chemistry ~Laurie L. Kurth and Mark J. Kurth
Synthesis Road Map Problems in Organic Chemistry ~Chris P. Schaller, Kate J. Graham, and T. Nicholas Jones
An Introductory Organic Chemistry Review Homework Exercise: Deriving Potential Mechanisms for Glucose Ring Opening in Mutarotation ~Margaret Murdock, R. W. Holman, Tyler Slade, Shelley L. D. Clark, and Kenneth J. Rodnick
Teaching Physical Chemistry
KinChem: A Computational Resource for Teaching and Learning Chemical Kinetics ~José Nunes da Silva Júnior, Mary Anne Sousa Lima, Eduardo Henrique Silva Sousa, Francisco Serra Oliveira Alexandre, and Antonio José Melo Leite Júnior
Influence of the Solvent on the Thermal Back Reaction of One Spiropyran ~Jonathan Piard
Web-Based Job Submission Interface for the GAMESS Computational Chemistry Program ~M. J. Perri and S. H. Weber
Introduction to Classical Density Functional Theory by a Computational Experiment ~Guillaume Jeanmairet, Nicolas Levy, Maximilien Levesque, and Daniel Borgis
Introduction to Density Functional Theory: Calculations by Hand on the Helium Atom ~Kyle A. Baseden and Jesse W. Tye
Gaussian-Type Orbitals versus Slater-Type Orbitals: A Comparison ~Alexandre L. Magalhães
Spontaneity and Equilibrium III: A History of Misinformation ~Lionel M. Raff
In the Laboratory
Physical Chemistry
Improved Method for Determining the Heat Capacity of Metals ~Roger Barth and Michael J. Moran
Thermodynamics Fundamental Equation of a “Non-Ideal” Rubber Band from Experiments ~Hernán A. Ritacco, Juan C. Fortunatti, Walter Devoto, Eugenio Fernández-Miconi, Claudia Dominguez, and Miguel D. Sanchez
A Stopped-Flow Kinetics Experiment for the Physical Chemistry Laboratory Using Noncorrosive Reagents ~Richard V. Prigodich
Computational Chemistry
Computational Chemistry in the Undergraduate Laboratory: A Mechanistic Study of the Wittig Reaction ~Birgit Albrecht
Particle in a Disk: A Spectroscopic and Computational Laboratory Exercise Studying the Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Corannulene ~E. Ramsey Frey, Andrzej Sygula, and Nathan I. Hammer
Investigating Hydrogen Bonding in Phenol Using Infrared Spectroscopy and Computational Chemistry ~Anna M. Fedor and Megan J. Toda
Biochemistry
Kinase Activity Studied in Living Cells Using an Immunoassay ~Aljoša Bavec
Protein Quantification by Elemental Mass Spectrometry: An Experiment for Graduate Students ~Gunnar Schwarz, Stefanie Ickert, Nina Wegner, Andreas Nehring, Sebastian Beck, Ruediger Tiemann, and Michael W. Linscheid
Ion Exchange and Thin Layer Chromatographic Separation and Identification of Amino Acids in a Mixture: An Experiment for General Chemistry and Biotechnology Laboratories ~Linda S. Brunauer, Katelyn E. Caslavka, and Karinne Van Groningen
Building Instrumentation
From Voltage to Absorbance and Chemical Kinetics Using a Homemade Colorimeter ~Jorge Delgado, Iraís A. Quintero-Ortega, and Arturo Vega-Gonzalez
Assembly of a Vacuum Chamber: A Hands-On Approach To Introduce Mass Spectrometry ~Guillaume Bussière, Robin Stoodley, Kano Yajima, Abhimanyu Bagai, Aleksandra K. Popowich, and Nicholas E. Matthews
It’s a Jolly Holiday with 91 Years of Chemistry
This issue marks 91 years of providing useful materials for chemical educators. We wish you a happy holiday season filled with opportunities to enjoy chemistry, such as reading some of the Chemical Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, doing a demonstration of a clock reaction demonstration involving red and green colors, experiencing the senses of the season, or writing holiday greetings using chromatography.
With 91 volumes of the Journal of Chemical Education to explore, you will always find something useful—including all of the articles mentioned above, and many more, in the Journal of Chemical Education. Articles that are edited and published online ahead of print (ASAP—As Soon As Publishable) are also available.