Teaching First Year Chemistry Dr. Kim Bolton, School of Environmental Sciences

1. Teaching First Year Chemistry Dr. Kim Bolton, School of Environmental Sciences

2. My Background • Soil and Water Chemist • My First Year Experience • Environmental Chemistry I and II • Equivalent to standard two term 1styear chemistry course • Environmental chemistry examples (acid rain, ozone depletion, photochemical smog, etc.) • Lectures/labs • Course no longer exists

3. My Background • My First Year Experience • Introductory Chemistry • Equivalent to grade 12 chemistry • Distance education format • No labs • Chemistry Today • Chemistry for non-science students (Hotel and Food Administration) • No labs

4. Environmental Chemistry I and II • Text: Introduction to Environmental Chemistry, Nigel Bunce • Objectives • Introduction to chemical principles which govern chemical reactions in the environment • Introduction to some specific problems in environmental chemistry

5. Environmental Chemistry I and II • Ways to engage students • Use of quantitative environmental examples: • Stoichiometry; eg) Calculate the maximum yield of sulphuric acid produced from 125 tonnes of pyrite. • Thermochemistry; eg) Calculate the mass of methane that must be burned to heat a typical house in S. Ontario on a winter day when the total heat requirement is 6.7 x 105 kJ • Photochemistry; eg) The C-Cl bond has bond dissociation energy 330 kJ mol-1, while CFCl3 absorbs radiation having λ < 220 nm. Will CFCl3 undergo bond cleavage in the lower atmosphere?

6. Environmental Chemistry I and II • Ways to engage students • Use of quantitative environmental examples: • Kinetics; eg) The degradation of the pesticide fenvalerate in the envionment is found to be first order with k = 3.9 x 10-7 s-1. An accidental discharge of 100 kg of fenvalerate into a holding pond results in a fenvalerate concentration of 1.3 x 10-5 mol L-1. Calculate the concentration left after one month. How long before the fenvalerate concentration in the pond reaches 1 μM? • Free Energy; eg) Calculate the equilibrium constant for • 3/2 O2(g)↔ O3(g) • and estimate O3 content in stratosphere. (then compare to actual content).

7. Environmental Chemistry I and II • Ways to engage students • Specific Environmental Topics: • Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change • Photochemical Smog and Ground Level Ozone • Water Hardness and Water Softening • Laboratory; water hardness by titration with standard EDTA • Biological Oxygen Demand (sewage and industrial waste water) • Phosphate removal from sewage • Acid Mine Drainage • “Stories” • Solubility; eg) Why do walls of the WellandCanal crumble? (CaSO4•H2O solubility) • Metal toxicity; Copper complexation story

8. Chemistry Today • Text: Chemistry in Focus, NivaldoTro(Brooks/Cole) • First half of course addresses general chemistry principles: • Atoms and Elements • Compounds and Chemical Reactions (a little stoichiometry) • Chemical Bonding (Lewis structures) • Organic Chemistry • Acids and Bases • Second half examine some applications: • Household Chemicals • Biochemistry and Pharmaceuticals • Chemistry of Food • Chemistry of the Environment

9. Chemistry Today • Way to engage students • Group Project - groups assigned "mystery ingredient list“ • Required to produce report • should be informative and should be written for the general public • for a popular science or health magazine.

10. Chemistry Today

11. Introductory Chemistry and Chemistry Today • Both Distance Education Courses • Way to engage students • OWL Homework (Cengage)

13. 1st year students • Student preparation quite variable • Strengths • Confidence • Willingness to ask for help • Weaknesses • Math!! (basic algebra; dimensional analysis) • Problem solving skills • Fear (and loathing) of chemistry • General 1st year issues • Maturity • Time management