Simulated research for freshmen

Abstract

Students are given a solution of some ion not covered in the regular identification scheme and asked to identify the ion, adopt or devise a scheme of analysis for an unknown containing the usual scheme of ions plus the one extra ion, and to analyze a couple of rather simple general unknowns that may or may not contain the extra ion.

The undergraduate training of chemistry majors: A report of the Bucknell Conference

“…A student should be given an opportunity to formulate his problem, design an attack, evaluate his experimental results, and draw his own conclusions. A few notable attempts in this direction for the beginning student have been described (7,8) and one laboratory manual has been published with this purpose uppermost (5).…”

An approach to laboratory instruction in general chemistry

“…which describe research-type laboratory work on the undergraduate level but these have generally been meant for students above the freshman level or in qualitative analysis (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11).…”

Independent study programs for freshmen

“…A recent publication (8) describes an undergraduate seminar and research program which includes sophomores. At the freshman level, a number of institutions (9,10,11) have incorporated some "research" into qualitative analysis in the form of special problems.A "freshman research project" involving the determination of the equivalent weight of metals has been described (12).…”