Applications of FT-NMR throughout the Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory Curriculum

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The Chemistry Department is committed to expanding the use of NMR spectroscopy as a tool to enrich the laboratory experiences of students in undergraduate chemistry classes. Experimental modules are being developed that allow the students to obtain, interpret, and report on their own NMR data in a variety of courses. The modules are adapting experiments found in the literature, largely in the Journal of Chemical Education. First, we are developing modules that apply NMR to laboratories which are required for chemistry majors. We then expand the applications to laboratories that occur earlier in the chemistry major's sequence and to laboratories for non-majors. We intend for these NMR-based experiments to exemplify an experimental approach to teaching science so that students develop the skills needed to understand data acquisition and analysis. In addition, the use of modern NMR instrumentation and related computer equipment is expected to stimulate the interest of non-majors in chemistry.In order to carry out this project, our spectrometer is being upgraded with a new console and is being equipped with a 100-sample sample-changer device. We recently dedicated this spectrometer to supporting undergraduate education and recently relocated it to facilitate that use. With the sample-changer upgrade we can obtain spectra for labs with up to one hundred students by letting the spectrometer acquire the data under automation during overnight time, without taking up valuable lab time to do so. We are planning applications to organic, inorganic, instrumental, biochemistry and quantitative analysis laboratory courses, as well as to two lower level non-majors classes.The institution has a high enrollment of students from underrepresented minorities, and those students are benefitting from participation in this project. In addition, this project includes direct interaction with the Chicago Alliance for Minority Participation (ChAMP) by using the NMR to support undergraduate research by ChAMP scholars in the department, and the NMR also is being used as part of a ChAMP effort that is restructuring introductory laboratories for entering students. We are committed to maximizing dissemination of our work. To this end we are planning extensive use of the internet, and pages are being set up that present data obtained by students in the various labs. Other institutions may download that data and process and analyze it locally.