Book and Media Review pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Review of The Integrated Approach to Chemistry Laboratory: Selected Experiments David T. Harvey* Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana 46135, United States laboratory problems. In the volume’s first experiment, which is typical of those that follow, students synthesize ZnO nanocrystals by adding base to an alcoholic solution of zinc acetate, monitoring the reaction’s progress spectrophotometrically. After isolating the ZnO nanocrystals, students use them to study the catalytic photodecomposition of the azobenzene dye methyl red. In completing the experiment, students draw on earlier coursework in inorganic chemistry, analytical chemistry, organic chemistry, and physical chemistry. Suggested problems and notes to the instructor provide possible extensions to the experiment, including how small changes to the synthesis affect the production and quality of ZnO nanocrystals.
The Integrated Approach to Chemistry Laboratory: Selected Experiments, edited by P. Basu and M. Johnson. DEStech Publications, Inc.: Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 2009.
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e educators value the importance of laboratory work as an essential part of students’ education in chemistry. One need look no further than the current issue of the Journal of Chemical Education to see that the development of innovative undergraduate laboratory experiments and laboratory curricula remains an active area of interest in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Although we traditionally organize the undergraduate chemistry curriculum into distinct disciplinesorganic, physical, inorganic, analytical, and biochemistry is the usual arrangement, but we can add to this list other disciplines, such as materials chemistry or environmental chemistryresearch in chemistry at the graduate level and in industry typically occurs at the interface between these disciplines. For students new to chemistry, the focus on individual disciplines makes sound pedagogical sense as it provides the time and space necessary for mastering fundamental concepts in the classroom and essential techniques in the laboratory. Such a narrow focus, however, is not without cost as students do not learn how concepts or techniques important to, for example, physical chemistry or analytical chemistry can help solve problems in organic chemistry.
The strength of this volume lies in the range of experiments on which an instructor can draw, some examples of which include: the analysis of volatile organic compounds in the oak staves used to make casks for the aging of wine; the construction of a microfluidic device for extracting lipids from a cellular lysate; the investigation of protein expression in bacteria grown under different conditions; and the synthesis and spectroscopic characterization of a series of thiomolybdates and thiotungstates. Each of the 12 experiments provides a list of learning objectives, introductory material that provides appropriate background information, experimental details, examples of typical data, and references to the literature. The experiments use equipment and instrumentation available in most chemistry departments; a few experiments, however, make use of equipment and instrumentation that is less common. Instructors interested in developing new experiments for integrated laboratories that make use of departmental expertise and resources will find this volume useful as a template for structuring laboratory handouts.
Cover image provided by DEStech Publications, Inc. and reproduced with permission.
Despite its many strengths, this volume has several shortcomings that deserve mention. The introduction, while extolling the virtues of an integrated laboratory curriculum, misses the opportunity to provide an annotated bibliography of the many available publications describing relevant experiments and curricula; this is an important oversight as such a bibliography would provide instructors new to integrated laboratories with a valuable resource. Of the 12 experiments included in this volume, six fail to mention safety considerations and many of those that do include them provide less than adequate cautions. Finally, the text would benefit from a more careful job of editing as it contains many small typographical errors. Although these errors are not critical in terms of experimental details or a
An integrated laboratory curriculum, such as that described in this volume of experiments edited by two members of the Chemistry Department at Duquesne University, provides advanced-level students with a set of open-ended, research-like, multidisciplinary
Published: January 18, 2012
© 2012 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
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Journal of Chemical Education
Book and Media Review
student’s ability to complete successfully the experiment, they nevertheless detract from what is otherwise a fine addition to the chemical pedagogical literature.
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[email protected].
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