Large class meets twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday. Students will be assigned to permanent groups in their discussion section, and will sit with those groups in the Tuesday/Thursday class.  These same permenant groups will serve as your group in lab as well.  In the large class, lab, and in discussion, students will engage in collaborative learning to develop real-world problem-solving skills.  Groups will debate public issues, predict the results of electrical and chemical demonstrations, explain unexpected results of these demonstrations, and answer questions posed by the instructor.  Your participation in these group activities is an important part of the learning process that goes on in the course.  So unlike many large classes, attendance is mandatory in class in order to participate with your group.  Five percent of your grade will depend on your attendance and participation in class.  Beginning February 20, you must sit with your permanent group in the large class.

Discussion sections meet once a week (beginning on Wednesdays; assignments should be handed in at the beginning of discussion).  The discussion sections will be treated as an integral part of the course, therefore, attendance is mandatory.  You should make sure that the discussion session that you are scheduled for is something which you can attend regularly, because new material will be presented in discussion sessions and because discussion session participation counts towards your final grade. In discussion sections, you will also be working on problems that will be initiated in the large class, as well as presenting results of projects.

Discussion sections BEGIN FEBRUARY 7 (Wednesday), with the discussion sequence starting on Wednesday and ending on Monday.  You will be assigned to your permanent group in your discussion section during the period February 14-19.

Laboratories meet once a week (sequence begins on Mondays;  you should have a lab notebook) LABORATORIES BEGIN FEBRUARY 12.  Labs will be REQUIRED of all students in the course, and attendance is mandatory.  There are no lab make-ups possible since your work depends on collaboration with your group members.  For safety reasons, the type of clothing which you wear to laboratories may be restricted, and you will be required to purchase and wear goggles to labs related to properies of matter (April 2-April 20).  Since this course is a lab course for the purposes of group D requirements, participation in lab is REQUIRED if you are to pass the course.

Nature of the Laboratory Exercises:  Many of the laboratories will be open-ended, where the objective is not to come up with some "book" answer for a physical quantity but to draw conclusions from what you see and do.  Most labs will be related to the complex problems that we will work on in the large class and discussion.

During April, you will use a variety of laboratory techniques to decide what materials and chemicals are in sports drinks.  You will present the results of your investigation during your discussion section the last week of the chemistry cycle.
Each student is responsible for keeping a laboratory notebook. You should record, in this notebook, what you did during the lab, and the conclusions which you came to as a result of these activities.  The questions which are provided in each lab write-up should guide your conclusions and should be addressed in your lab notebook. Some suggestions on the format of the laboratory notebook are provided in the lab manual.  Part of your lab grade is based on your participation in individual lab sessions.  For each lab, your TA will collect a product related to your work in the lab and you will receive a maximum of 5 points for your work each week.

Laboratory Safety:  The laboratory experiments you will do will be, mostly, with common household materials and chemicals.  While these present fewer safety hazards than may be presented by more specialized chemicals, any material -- even water -- can present hazards when improperly used.  (For example, you can burn yourself with boiling water.)  Safety instructions will be supplied with each laboratory exercise.  When students start handling "hazardous" chemicals in the laboratory, it will be required that you watch a safety video which will deal with the right-to-know law.

You will also receive a maximum of 5 points for your participation in discussion every week.  Most activities in discussion will be related to topics covered in the large class and lab that week.
 

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