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Chem 121 HomePage
jgoldber@zoo.uvm.edu
| LECTURE: |
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| LABORATORY: |
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| INSTRUCTOR: |
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| TEACHING ASSISTANT: |
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| TEXT: |
Quantitative Chemical
Analysis, 5th Edition (REQUIRED) by Daniel C. Harris |
| LAB MANUAL: |
Chem 121: The
Laboratory Manual, (REQUIRED) by Goldberg and Sentell. Available for
purchase EXCLUSIVELY at the 1st floor stockroom (A143 Cook) . . . only ten
bucks! |
| LAB NOTEBOOK: |
A BOUND lab notebook (e.g.,
National #43-571) is REQUIRED and may be purchased in the bookstore. It must
be well organized and all data must be recorded directly into it in pen. You
should also purchase an indelible marker or "Sharpie" (also available at the
bookstore) for marking your name on weighing bottles and crucibles that will
be dried in the lab ovens. |
| BREAKAGE CARD: |
You must have one in order
to check into the lab! Pay your $40.00 to the kind people in the first floor
stockroom (A143 Cook) and they'll give you a card that entitles you to all of
the rights and privileges of a genuine Chem 121 student. Bring the card to
every lab session. If you're careful with your equipment throughout the
term, you should get most of your $$ back at the end of the semester when you
check out. |
| LAB SAFETY: |
It goes without saying that your safety in the lab is of prime
importance. For many of you, this will be the first time that you will
encounter a number of truly hazardous substances in the lab. Please heed all
warnings and handle these substances as directed! Cleaning Solution. We will use a mixture of a strong oxidant and concentrated H2SO4, called Nochromix, as a cleaning solution for burets, pipettes, and filtering crucibles. THIS MATERIAL WILL CAUSE SEVERE BURNS IF IT CONTACTS YOUR SKIN. It will also eat through your clothes (great stuff, huh?). If you happen to get any of it on your skin or clothes or in your eyes, wash the affected area immediately with copious amounts of water and call the lab instructor. Since a mere drop of this stuff can turn your favorite shirt, blouse, pants, or whatever into a rag, it is strongly recommended that you wear a lab coat (available at the bookstore or at the medical bookstore) or old clothes that your parents have threatened to incinerate. Safety Goggles. Our pals at OSHA have made it a requirement that YOU MUST WEAR SAFETY GOGGLES (not just safety glasses) IN THE LAB AT ALL TIMES! They're available in the bookstore -- no excuses! Contact lenses are NOT allowed in the laboratory. If you wear prescription glasses, you must still wear goggles over them. Pipetting. There will be no pipetting by mouth -- pipetting will be done only with a pipette bulb. |
| OFFICE HOURS: |
I
will establish and announce office hours for the semester during the
first week of classes. I will be available at other times as well
(see me to make an appointment) and, of course, you are welcome to stop by my
office at your convenience (but, if I am busy we will have to reschedule for
another time). Also, I am virtuallyavailable via email for your questions; I check my
email regularly every day (even on weekends), so you should be able to get an
email reply to a question within 12 hours of your posting it to me (barring
any unforeseen technical difficulties!). |
| GRADING: | There will be two in-class exams and one comprehensive Final Exam. The Final Exam is scheduled for Tuesday December 14th at noon in B104 Angell. |
| Your grade for the course will be determined as follows: |
| Laboratory: | 500 points | ||
| Exam I: | 125 points | ||
| Exam II: | 125 points | ||
| Final Exam: | 250 points | ||
| TOTAL: | 1000 points | ||
| LECTURE: |
In order to learn the lecture material, one must work problems. To
help you with this task, I will periodically hand out problem sets. The
problem sets will not be graded, but I will collect them and make a note of
the amount of effort expended on them and use that as a means of deciding
borderline cases when assigning final grades. For each problem set, I will prepare and hand out a detailed answer sheet. Please work through the problem set before looking at the answer sheet. If a particular problem is stumping you, move on to another one and go back to it later. If you still can't work the problem, follow through the solution on the answer sheet. Then, without checking the answer sheet, re-do the problem. Do this until you can solve all of the problems without looking at the answer sheet. Please feel free to work with others when working problems, but remember that you will be required to solve similar problems by yourself when you take the exams. |
| LABORATORY: |
Practical quantitative analysis is a skill that is acquired only
via meticulous practice in the laboratory. The purpose of this course is not
only to acquaint you with specific methods of analysis, but also to instill
in you good quantitative lab habits. You may never perform these specific
analyses again, but the quantitative lab skills that you learn will help you
regardless of the area of laboratory science you may end up in. Half of your final grade will be determined by the laboratory portion of the course. For most of the experiments, you will be given an unknown and asked to analyze it for a specific substance using a standard procedure. You will be graded heavily (60-75%) on how well your results agree with the actual value. Thus, it is imperative that you work on your technique so that you can work rapidly, efficiently, and accurately. You must come to lab prepared to work. Each experiment has been allotted a sufficient number of periods for its completion -- you may not work on an experiment longer than the allotted number of periods. Before entering the lab, you should read and understand the experiment and outline the experimental procedure that you will follow. You cannot "wing" these labs -- if you're not prepared, you will not have enough time to finish in the allotted periods. We reserve the right to inspect your outlined experimental procedure before allowing you to begin the experiment. |
| LAB REPORTS: | Lab reports should follow the format shown on the attached
handout and are due at the beginning of the lab period one week
following the end of the assigned experiment. Late labs will be docked 2% of
the total possible score for every day late (not including weekends). If it is
obvious to us at first glance that you have made a serious error in your
calculations, the lab report will be handed back to you without a grade and
you will be given 24 hours to rectify the error(s). |
| LAB GRADING: | A hefty portion (60-75%) of your lab grade will be based solely
on your results, while the additional 25-40% will be derived from the rest of
the lab write-up. Try to understand the what and why as well
as the how aspects of the experiments. Take special care in drawing
graphs and making calculations. If we need to redo calculations for you,
you'll lose points. If incorrectly performed calculations result in inaccurate
final answers, the lab will again be returned to you for corrections and your
score for the lab reduced by 10%.
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| THE WEB: | This sylabus and the accompanying lecture and lab schedule are also available on the web page for this course (http://www.uvm.edu/~jgoldber/courses/chem121/chem121.html). At that URL, you will also find all readings and problem sets as well as a general lecture outline(keyed to lecture dates). If there is interest, I will develop this to include links to appropriate web sites with content that can serve to complement or supplement the material presented in class. |
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jgoldber@zoo.uvm.edu