Lab-in-a-Box: A Guide for Remote Laboratory Instruction in an Instrumental Analysis Course

Abstract

Hands-on learning in a laboratory is an integral part of the undergraduate experience for chemistry students. However, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, an opportunity for this approach was not possible. The pandemic has been forcing instructors to explore the remote setting instead of the laboratory. There are several commercially available kits for remote laboratory instruction in general chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry. Kits provide students with a majority of necessary items to conduct scientific experiments in their homes. Unfortunately, there are no commercially available kit options for laboratory exercises in an instrumental analysis course. Here, we describe a homemade kit that focuses on two important pillars of instrumental analysis: spectroscopy and chromatography. The total cost of the kit is about 700 USD; this amount can be reduced significantly if a "do-ityourself" spectrometer is employed instead of a commercial model. Details about kit contents and experiments performed are described.

Designing a Remote, Synchronous, Hands-On General Chemistry Lab Course

“…This paper describes our effort to fit together a number of different “puzzle pieces” as we developed a lab kit in the summer of 2020 and adapted the general chemistry lab course for remote delivery in the fall semester of 2020. Many of the factors we had to consider, such as safety, equity in access to materials and supplies, engaging students, and motivating them to be accountable for their learning in a remote environment, were faced by other chemistry programs, as is well-described in the recent special issue of this Journal . − Our motivation for describing our approach and discussing the outcomes is to provide information that may be beneficial for anyone seeking to do something similar, if not now, then sometime in the future.…”

Hands-on experiences for remotely taught analytical chemistry laboratories

“…These lab activities, which were completed synchronously by students working in assigned groups within online breakout rooms, gave students practice collaboratively designing experiments while also providing them with opportunities to optimize their smartphone spectrometers and address differences that arose in their results due to variations in spectrometer design. To support these experiments, students were provided with a take-home laboratory kit [ 16 ] which included consumables (such as gloves and plastic cuvettes), beakers, a volumetric flask, a 10-mg balance, a 100-μL mini-pipette and 10-mL graduated volumetric pipette, food dye standards, and candy and beverage samples (further details about the equipment boxes are provided in the ESM).…”

As Similar As Possible, As Different As Necessary — On-Site Laboratory Teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…As of today, for safety, economic, environmental, and logistic reasons, laboratory education cannot be replaced by hands-on work at home. Even though several useful adaptations of simple chemistry experiments for home learning exist, they can only be used to a limited extent to replace introductory courses − and fall short of presenting an alternative to advanced laboratory education.…”