CHEM210, "Introduction to Chemical Computation", is a 2-unit, sophomore-level course that has replaced the computer programming requirement in the undergraduate chemistry major. Our students engage in exploration activities whereby they learn how to use modern software packages as tools to understand chemistry.

A testing protocol for elemental analysis of automotive paint by scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, based on beam alignment by current centering and using an attached optical microscope was developed to improve the reliability of sample comparisons. Six light-green paint samples (three color pairs) from the 1983 Reference Collection of Automotive Paints were used for developing this protocol. X-ray spectral data were acquired using a JEOL JSM-35CF scanning electron microscope with an attached optical microscope and a Tracor Northern energy-dispersive X-ray analyzer and software. The instrumental conditions for the analyses were as follows: 20-kV accelerating voltage, 0.5-nA beam current, 30-mm detector distance, 35° detector take-off angle, 0° sample tilt, and × 200 magnification. The software acquisition parameters were 1 000 000 integral counts per spectrum and a 0.2 to 10-eV spectral range. Statistical analyses were used to examine the reliability of the X-ray spectral data acquired using this protocol. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that the elemental means of all paint samples were significantly different than the means of the same sample in replicate analyses. Simple visual comparison of data between samples, along with ANOVA, provided discrimination of all paint samples.

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Recent developments in modern instrumentation and analytical techniques have put greater demands on the tradi-

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