Welcome to CH101/103 General Chemistry. This is the first semester of a year-long course intended primarily for science majors, pre-medical students, engineering students who require a one-year course, and other interested students. This syllabus is designed to answer many questions you may have. Please read it over and then keep it handy to use throughout the semester. If you have questions about the material or the course, we encourage you to email them to ch101-questions@bu.edu. All of the CH101 staff receive email to this address and so this is typically the fastest way to get your questions answered.

Staff

The course is given by

Professor Alexander Golger (SCI/484A, 617-353-2124, golger@bu.edu) is the course coordinator and is in charge of the laboratory part of CH101.

Discussion sections are led by Lecturer Natalya Bassina (SCI/484B, 617-353-4716, nbassina@bu.edu), Postdoctoral Faculty Fellows Nicholas Hammond, LSE/1028, hmnd@bu.edu) and Adam Moser (SCI/503, mosera@bu.edu) and graduate teaching fellows. Natalya Bassina also is in charge of class scheduling and other administrative aspects of the course.

Course materials

Required textbook and online homework

The required textbook is Brian B. Laird, University Chemistry, (McGraw-Hill, 2009, ISBN 978-0077221331) and the required homework software is Webassign. (WebAssign access information will be provided at the start of classes.) Your may purchase the textbook and Webassign in several ways. We advise you to comparative shop and select the option that you feel is appropriate for your learning style.  All listed options satisfy the course requirements. 

Please note that state sales tax will be applied to the cost of online sales in states where a sales tax is levied. 

Required ALEKS General Chemistry online personal tutoring

Instructions for you to purchase and to use ALEKS are at

http://quantum.bu.edu/courses/ch101/aleks.html

Required response pad

The Turning Technologies ResponseCard RF Keypad may may be purchased online using the Boston University school code b6sc at

https://store.turningtechnologies.com/

for $28 + shipping, or from Boston University Barnes & Noble Bookstore.

Additional required materials available only from Boston University Barnes & Noble Bookstore

  1. Golger, General Chemistry Laboratory Manual, (Hayden McNeil Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-0-7380-4241-1).
  2. Exploring Quantum Concepts in Chemistry (2010 edition), for computer-based labs 5, 6 and 7; this must be purchased at the Boston University bookstore.
  3. laboratory notebook, Hayden McNeil Publishing, ISBN 1-930882-23-8.
  4. approved safety goggles, item #9301, also required in organic chemistry
  5. laboratory coat, also required in organic chemistry

Be aware that it is a Massachusetts State Law that safety goggles are mandatory in the laboratory. In the lab, all students who wear contact lenses should wear prescription glasses under their safety goggles. Contact lenses are forbidden in the lab. Also, all students must wear the appropriate clothing: long pants, long sleeves and closed shoes (no sandals or flip-flops).

You are also required to have your own calculator for this course. It should display scientific (exponential) notation and have logarithm functions. Be sure to bring it to discussions and laboratory sessions. Note, however, calculators may not be used during exams and quizzes.

Course schedule

The course consists of five required components:

There are three hours of lecture meetings each week, and these lecture meetings are held in SCI/107 at three alternative times:

You are required to attend your assigned lecture meeting. You may attend one or more of the other lecture meetings if you unavoidably miss a lecture meeting or if you would like to experience a different presentation of the material.

There is a one-hour discussion each week, on Thursday or Friday. Discussions meet starting Thursday, September 2. There is one three-hour laboratory each week. Laboratory sessions are held in SCI/268 on Monday–Friday. The first laboratory session is on Monday, September 13. Some weeks there will also be a laboratory lecture, on Wednesday–Friday. These laboratory lectures are: Wednesday 2–3 pm MOR/101, Thursday 1–2 pm KCB/107 and 4–5 pm SCI/107, Friday 2–3 pm MOR/101. Lab lecture begins the second week of the semester. The first laboratory lecture is on Wednesday, September 8. Labs begin the third week of the semester.

The Monday 5–7 pm sessions are used for diagnostic tests, lab post tests, and lecture exams.

If you have not yet registered for all of the five (three for CH103) components of the course, please do so right away. All grade records are based on the registrar information, so we require that you be officially registered and that you attend the corresponding lecture, discussion and lab.

Exams and quizzes

There will be three lecture exams, a lab exam and a course final exam as follows:

The final exam, Thursday, December 16, 5–7 pm, will not be given at any other time and failure to take the final exam exam will result in a zero for that exam, so please make end-of-semester travel plans accordingly.

A quiz will be given at the beginning of each lecture. These quizzes are meant to assess your preparation for the material to be covered that day in lecture. If you are absent, the missed quiz counts as 0. No makeup quizzes will be given. The lecture quizzes count for a total of 10% of your course grade.

Unannounced quizzes will be given in discussion. Each discussion quiz will count equally. These quizzes are meant to assess your understanding of topics covered in previous lectures and homework. If you are absent, the missed quiz counts as 0. No makeup quizzes will be given. The discussion quizzes count for a total of 5% of your course grade.

Unannounced lab quizzes may be given during lab lecture.

Finally, on Monday, September 13, there will be an assessment of your background knowledge on quantum concepts (there is nothing to prepare for this assessment); on Monday, ... there will be a post test on the energy of light lab lecture workshop; and on Mondays, ..., there will be a post test on the preceding computer-based investigation. All of these tests will be given beginning at 5 pm in locations to be announced.

Academic Conduct

All students at Boston University are expected to maintain high standards of academic honesty and integrity. It is the responsibility of every student to be aware of the Academic Conduct Code’s contents and to abide by its provisions, as detailed at

http://www.bu.edu/cas/students/undergrad-resources/code/

Please note carefully that we treat cheating with zero tolerance. The consequences of cheating are at a minimum that the score for work on which cheating occurs counts as 0, and a letter detailing the cheating is sent to the student's advisor, the dean of CAS, and placed in the student's academic file. Possible further consequences are referral to Academic Conduct Committee and additional penalties, including possible expulsion from university.

Course Web and Email

The course Web at

http://quantum.bu.edu/courses/ch101

and email are used extensively in this course. If you have questions about the material or the course, we encourage you to email them to

ch101-questions@bu.edu

All of the CH101 staff receive email to this address and so this is typically the fastest way to get your questions answered.

Each student is required to have an email account on the Boston University computer network. It is easy to activate your account, if you have not already done so (there is no charge to use your account): Go to Information Technology, 111 Cummington Street, and they will set you up. Be sure to ask for their handouts on how to use the World Wide Web and email. Your email address will automatically be added to the course email address. Please note that use of university computing facilities is governed by the BU Conditions Use and Policy on Computing Ethics,

http://www.bu.edu/tech/policies/computing-ethics/

Abuse can result in severe sanctions, including fines and academic probation or suspension.

What we will cover

We have designed the course as an introduction to general chemistry that integrates laboratory explorations with the development of the analytical tools necessary to understand and guide those explorations. Some particular aspects that we will emphasize are

Our goal is to help you share in our excitement for and the wonder of science, to challenge you to excel, to give you a sense of empowerment about science, and to encourage you to continue study in science—and hopefully chemistry. We intend to focus especially on what are the core ideas of chemistry.

Lecture

In the first semester we cover Laird chapters 0 through 5, as follows.

Start Date Laird Chapter and Notes
First lecture 0. The Language of Chemistry
Monday, September 20 1. Quantum Theory of the Submicroscopic World
Quantum aspects of light and matter, PDF, 43 pages, http://bit.ly/bSSxJu
Why atoms don't collapse, PDF, 6 pages, http://bit.ly/cDfbkZ
Hydrogen atom family album, PDF, 7 pages, http://bit.ly/a9WuaL
Friday, October 22 2. Many-Electron Atoms and the Periodic Table
Monday, November 1 3. The Chemical Bond and 4. Molecular Structure and Interaction
Bonding in diatomic molecules, PDF, 26 pages, http://bit.ly/afkIlf
Hybrid AO's and polyatomic MO's, PDF, 35 pages, http://bit.ly/cV9Ggd
Wednesday, December 1 5. Phase Diagrams and Gases

Laboratory

The detailed laboratory schedule is here.

The laboratory part of the course will let you see first-hand chemical principles and processes in action. It will also give you experience with some of the methods scientists use to do chemical research. Your laboratory will consist of ...

  1. Measurement of atoms and molecules in solids, liquids and gases. The size of atoms and molecules in experiments with solids, liquids and gases will be determined. A film of oleic acid, which is only one molecule thick, will be produced experimentally and the length of the oleic acid molecule will be determined. Finally, the experimental value of the number of molecules in one mole of anything—Avogadro’s number—will be found.
  2. Chemical composition of inorganic salts. By the behavior investigation of different hydrates the law of fixed chemical composition will be explored. Students will see that chemical changes can be reversed and learn how to distinguish chemical substances from physical mixtures. They will also develop the laboratory analysis technique, which allows determine the molecular formula of the investigated substance.
  3. Lecture workshop on spectroscopy. The goal of this workshop is to use spectroscopic measurements to experimentally determine the relationship between the color, frequency and the wavelength of light. In a series of additional experiments with LEDs the relationship between the energy E of a quantum of light and its frequency ν will be revealed and the value of Plank’s constant calculated.
  4. In lab post-test on spectroscopy workshop.
  5. Properties of waves and orbitals (computer-based investigation). An electron in an atom is represented as a special kind of wave. In this investigation you will learn to read the properties of waves based on how they change in time and space. This will allow you to interpret electron waves in atoms.
  6. The role of time in atoms and light (computer-based investigation). A great puzzle of atoms is why they do not collapse. You will explore how the answer traces to the special way that time works in atoms and in their interaction with light.
  7. SOE: Symmetry, overlap, and energy (computer-based investigation). Molecules form by interaction of electron waves on different atoms. You will explore the relative symmetry, spatial overlap, and relative energy control which electron wave interact and how strongly.
  8. Lewis structures and molecular shapes. Using general concepts of Lewis structures and VSEPR method 3-D shapes of real molecules and their dipole moments will be determined. 
  9. Preparation of solutions. This lab experiment gives an important experience in solutions’ preparation using different laboratory techniques: dissolution, dilution and mixing. Students also learn how to use spectroscopic measurements for the concentration control in solutions.
  10. Gas laws. The relationship between the volume, pressure, temperature and the number of moles of a gas sample will be established. Combining them together, the Ideal Gas Law and the value of the gas constant R will be determined. In one of these experiments, the lowest possible temperature that can be reached in nature, −273.15 oC, will be found!  

Grading

Your scores for each part of the course will always be available to you on Blackboard, at http://bit.ly/ccZKJz. Also there will be the running total of your overall course score, computed as described below.

We do not assign letter grades to exams, labs or quizzes. Your course grade will be determined based on your overall course score. This score is determined as follows:

Contributions to overall course score
Lecture exams 30%
Final exam 15%
Laboratory 20%
Lecture quizzes 10%
Discussion quizzes 5%
Online homework 10%
ALEKS mastery 10%

For CH101 students, the lab score counts for 20% of your course grade. The various components of the lab will be graded as follows: The lab experiments (30 points for each lab period), lab quizzes (10 points each), lab lecture quizzes (5 points each), and the lab exam (60 points). Lab quizzes are given at the beginning of each lab to check your familiarity with the basic features of the lab to be done.

No makeup quizzes will be given. The lowest lab score will be dropped. A missed lab counts as zero. If, due to unusual circumstances, such as prolonged illness, you miss more than one lab, please contact Dr. Golger (golger@bu.edu) as soon as possible so that special arrangements can be made to catch up with your work.

CH103 students will graded based on their relative score for the lecture-only part of the course.

There are no fixed percentages of A grades, B grades, etc. Rather, we assign course letter grades based on our assessment of how someone should have performed to receive an A, B, etc.

Questions about grading

Any question concerning the grading of a lecture exam, quiz, or laboratory report must be brought to the attention of your discussion or laboratory teaching fellow during the class session in which it is returned to you; material will not be accepted for regrading afterwards.

Indicate on the face of the exam, quiz or laboratory report the questions you wish re-graded and your reasons for believing that they were mis-graded. The entire work will be re-graded. Be sure you have made no alterations in your work. We occasionally photocopy your graded work as a check. Please note that the penalties for academic misconduct are severe, as detailed in Boston University's Academic Conduct Code, available from CAS Academic Advising, Room 105.

 

Suggestions for success

Learning chemistry requires persistence, diligence and hard work. We suggest that you plan to spend about 20 hours per week on this course over and above the scheduled contact hours. If you are willing to devote this time, and you spend it wisely and effectively, you will be able to perform your best in this course. Here are some specific suggestions that students have found helpful.

Lecture preparation

You will get the most out of lecture if you have prepared the material to be discussed. The lecture quizzes are meant to measure you preparation.

A particularly effective way to do this is to first read through several pages of the material in the course texts. Next, when you think you have understood what you have read, set the texts aside and then make a written summary of what you have understood. It is important to carry out this step without looking at the texts. Finally, compare what you have written with the material in the texts, to identify those parts that are unclear or where your understanding is incomplete.

If you follow this procedure, you will have a quite detailed idea of what will be covered in each lecture, and, most important, you can be particularly alert to those parts that are unclear for you and, if the lecture still doesn't clarify things, you will be able to ask questions right in lecture. You may even want to collect your summaries in a journal that you can then update and refine throughout the semester. and so make an excellent set of notes for review prior to the final exam.

Lecture follow up

After each lecture, you should work through your lecture notes to be sure you understand everything that was covered. You may even want to rewrite your notes. That way, as you do so, you can test your understanding. If material is still unclear, then be sure to ask for specific help with it, in email, office hours or discussion.

Homework

Chemistry is a quantitative science and understanding of its concepts is obtained by solving problems. The text and Webassign offer many problems. For success you should do as many of these as you can and if you run into difficulties ask your teaching fellow or professor, in email, office hours or discussion. You will get the most out of lectures if you have worked through problems related to material to be covered before lecture.

Discussions

In discussion you will work together on problems designed to consolidate, deepen and challenge your understanding. Through these problems you will gain experience learning how to identify things that are unclear and then how to master them. Such self-assessment and self-teaching is an essential skill in the toolkit of the independent learner, and crucial for effective exam preparation.

Also, exams will be returned and discussed during these discussions. Any questions about exams or problem sets should be addressed to your discussion TF during this time.

Getting help

The teaching staff will hold office hours each week. These and many others resources are detailed at

http://quantum.bu.edu/courses/ch101/help.html

If you have concerns

If you are experiencing difficulty, please come to see your lecture professor or Professor Golger without delay. Often, students in this course perceive that they are doing poorer work than they actually are. Particularly for first-year students, we recognize that it may be difficult for you to judge your academic standing in the course, since we do not use the same type of grading scheme with which you may be familiar from high school. That is why it is important for you to speak to us before making any major decision, such as dropping the course.

If dropping the course appears to be in your best interest, we still would like to work through the decision with you. We are also happy to advise you on appropriate choices for your academic program. If you drop the course by Thursday, October 7, no record of it will appear on your transcript. After that date, until the end of the day Friday, November 5, you may drop the course but with a W grade (withdrawn). If you must drop the course, note that CH101 will be given during the Spring and Summer sessions of 2011.