General Chemistry Laboratory Manual: Chem 1105

This manual is designed to be paired with the General Chemistry component of a GOB course which annually enrolls about 1000 mostly pre-nursing and agricultural science students at Texas Tech University, but it could also be paired with the first semester of two-semester General Chemistry sequence. A digital site is provided for pre-laboratory assignments, submission and analysis of data in a laboratory report, and post-laboratory questions with each component being fully machine graded. Consequently, the printed manual contains only what is required in the physical laboratory: procedures with integrated safety reminders and data recording sheets.

Content and questions are seamlessly integrated in the pre-laboratory assignments with qualitative concept understanding and quantitative calculational skills incrementally developed through a consistent sub-section sequence:

• Introduction – reviews the core chemistry principles and concepts explored or exemplified by the experiment.
•  About the Experiment – works through how particulars of the experiment connect with the larger concepts.
• Methods – instruction on laboratory techniques and data analysis schemes.
• Safety – highlighted emphasis on critical safety procedures and concerns specific to the experiment and a reminder of general safety practices.

The integrated questions, qualitative and quantitative, in each sub-section are algorithmic with detailed feedback, so multiple attempts can be used to promote self-learning. This scheme strongly accommodates lecture course content gaps that a student may have and allows the manual to be paired with both traditional and atoms-first lecture course approaches.

The topics begin with elementary experiments focusing on laboratory skills, observations, measurements, and data analysis schemes, transition to discovery experiments where substances are identified by chemical and physical properties, and culminate with expository experiments addressing buffer systems and redox chemistry. However, no special effort is needed to reorder the experiments because each is fully self-contained with the content and instruction needed to perform interpret, and understand the experiment.