Department of Chemistry

 Awards to: Eric Chronister, Jack Eichler and Richard Hooley.

IUIT proposals address planned research and experimentation to develop and evaluate novel ideas that integrate technology with course curriculum and pedagogy. This program is made feasible by the new student technology fee paid by all undergraduate and graduate students at UCR. The program goal is to solicit and support creative and effective ideas for improving instruction through innovative use of information technologies.

 
Quantum Mechanical Calculations in Undergraduate Courses:  Utilizing a Browser Interface to an Instructional Computational Cluster
Eric Chronister

The grant will provide funds to purchase a powerful 64 core workstation dedicated to undergraduate instruction and research, plus a graphical web browser interface (WebMO) that will provide remote student access to UCR site license quantum mechanical software (e.g. Gaussian).  The initial instructional applications will focus on:

1) hands-on pedagogical undergraduate experiences with modern chemical computational methods (e.g. quantum mechanical modeling in Chem1, 112, and 113)

2) computational research opportunities for undergraduates (e.g. Chem1H Labs) where student will explore independent research on the wide range of possible molecular conformations associated with hydrocarbons believed to exist as interstellar species. 

 It is also expected that more comprehensive projects in which the research results of many students can be combined and analyzed as a group to evaluate the wide range of similar hydrocarbon species that have been proposed as interstellar molecular species. 

Using Information Technology to Create Interactive Learning Environments in General Chemistry Discussion Groups and Organic Chemistry Laboratories
Jack Eichler and Richard Hooley

The funding will help to put Mathematica on 5 computers in the second floor computer lab. In addition, summer salary and money to pay the Office of Campus Computing, which will allow us to create a website to house all of our case study materials.  The website will be designed in a way that will allow chemistry instructors from any institution to download the case study files and use them in their course management sites (Blackboard, WebCT, etc.).  As we publish the cases with the NCCSTS, we will also provide links from our website to our case materials at the NCCSTS site.  The summer salary also included a couple months of summer support for a grad student who will develop interactive tutorials using the Mathematica software (these tutorials will be done in the gen chem discussion groups).