Integrating the Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory Curriculum through a Versatile, Laser-Based Experimental System

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Chemistry (12) The traditional way of teaching chemistry to undergraduate chemistry majors at most colleges and universities is to include a series of laboratory courses that complement the lecture courses. Each lab course has experiments chosen for their relevance to the concurrent lecture material. This project is implementing a prototype of a new laboratory curriculum, in which experiments are chosen not just for their relevance to concurrent course material, but also to illustrate and reinforce the connections between topics taught at different levels. A variety of experiments from current literature is being adapted for use in the new curriculum. The curriculum has two key features not present in the current curriculum: (1) sequences of experiments that begin in the introductory course and continue with increasing sophistication and application to more advanced concepts in the upper-level courses; and (2) utilization of laser technology in all lab courses to illustrate and reinforce the connections between concepts. The laser experimental system also enables several modem concepts to be introduced into the laboratory curriculum that were previously only presented as theory in the lecture courses.