Recently in Class schedule Category

Lab continues to meet this week as normally scheduled.

Lab lecture on Thursday night, Nov 19, is cancelled.

The only lab operations scheduled for the following week, M-W, Nov 23-25, are wrapping up the acetylferrocene experiment. If students are unable to finish this experiment this week, they can perform any and all operations -- run the reaction, separate the compounds on a column, analyze the results by TLC, measure melting points, or make NMR samples for us -- they can do that next week during the scheduled lab periods.

Special request - my lab assistants will be in the lab starting at 1:10 PM. I will let them leave the lab, however, if no students show up by 1:30 PM. So please come on time. If you need to make up lab work, but can't get to the lab until after 1:30, please send me an email now so that I can pass this info along to my lab assistants. Thanks

Since no strong objections were raised to the schedule changes that I had proposed, I have made the following changes for the upcoming exam, homework and classes (all of the appropriate online schedules have been updated to reflect these chanes):

Exam #3 - Thursday, Nov 19, in conference. Please attend conference at your normal time and location. Bring a model kit. Keep in mind that some students may have already taken the exam or will be taking the exam later than you, so please do not blurt out anything about the exam and do not discuss the exam publicly until 2 PM.

HW #6 - out late Monday, Nov 9; due Monday, Nov 16, noon; returned Wednesday, Nov 18, 9 AM.

Syllabus - I am gaining an extra lecture day on Monday, Nov 16 and this will affect the lecture schedule for the rest of the term. I will start lecturing on Chapter 10 on Monday, Nov 16. There will be two additional lectures on Chapter 10 on Wednesday, Nov 18 (note that these first two lectures are coming before exam #3) and on Friday, Nov 20. There will also be a lab lecture on Thursday, Nov 19.

I've been looking over Chapter #9 and the schedule for the next two weeks and I'm kicking around two options in my mind.

Option #1
Exam #3 would still be on Monday, November 16. However, if the exam were to be held on this day, I would abbreviate the exam's coverage of chapter 9 topics slightly (and these topics would appear on the final exam instead). The "abbreviated" exam would not include sections 9.6-9.8, but would include 9.1-9.5 which is the bulk of the chapter.

Option #2
Exam #3 would be moved to Thursday, November 19, i.e., you would take the exam during your conference hour and in your conference room. The exam would cover all of Chapter 9 right through section 9.8. To support this, the next homework assignment would also cover all of chapter 9 and the due date would be extended. Monday, November 16 would just be a normal lecture (finishing chapter 9?, starting Chapter 10).

Frankly, option #2 is a much more sensible way to proceed (but it has never occurred to me before to use conference time in this way). I would like to follow option #2, but because this is a major schedule change, I would like to consult with the class first. Please let me know ASAP if you have any objections to option #2.

Salicylic acid experiment. You should go into lab on your own and perform the two activities needed to complete this experiment:

1. weigh your product
2. measure its melting "point"

These operations may be performed on any week day (9 AM - 5 PM) between now and the due date for the lab report: Friday, Oct 18, 5 PM. Work outside of these hours, or on weekends, is not permitted because of safety concerns.

Banana oil experiment. We will start, but not complete, the experiment next week. You can expect to get through the work-up and into the early phases of the distillation. Perhaps you can do even more. Most students will complete the distillation and subsequent characterization steps after Fall Break. To prepare for this lab, you should:

1. Do the usual: read background section in lab manual, prepare your lab notebook, print and complete pre-lab activity sheet
   
2. Acquaint yourself with the concepts of workup, extraction, washing, drying, proper use of separatory ("sep") funnels. The MIT video: Workup I (18 minutes) should be watched carefully. There is also helpful material in Padias.
3. Acquaint yourself with the concept of distillation. My slides are here. There is also helpful material in Padias.

Homework. The answers to HW #4 have been posted. My readers will do their best to get through these lengthy assignments asap, but they are both taking the Graduate Record Exams (GREs) this weekend and they need to prepare. I have given them additional time to read your work and this may delay return of your problems sets by 24 hours? We'll see.

The next problem set will be posted sometime tomorrow, but it will not be collected. Answers will be posted next week.

Bring model kit to lecture tomorrow. And please arrive on time since we will be performing a ChemActivity related to Chapter 6.

40 of you responded to my Doodle poll and the results were really helpful. I am going to try out the following as office hours for this semester:

• Tues, 4-5:30* PM (look for me in the o chem lab as well as in my office)
  
• Wed, 10-12 AM
• Fri, 2-4 PM

As you know, our morning lectures have moved to the Psych auditorium.

The Psych aud. is already committed to some other campus groups for Thursday evenings, so lab lectures will stay in Eliot 314, 6:10-7:00 Th.

There is a llab lecture tonite featuring Kathleen Fisher, the director of Environmental Health & Safety and important information about next week's lab schedule and safety procedures. See you tonite.

Some helpful safety links (also available from the lab manual's table of contents)

• Chem 201 safety quiz (complete*, bring to lab next week)
• Chemistry safety manual (read, print statement, sign, bring to lab next week)
  
• Environmental Health & Safety
  

I think it's totally impossible to find some office hours that will work for everyone. But I'm going to try and make myself as available as possible.

Please tell me which of MY "free" hours are also YOUR "free" hours by using the Doodle poll link that I've emailed to each of you. (Note: I'm not posting the link here because I don't want the whole world to vote. Just you.)

Instructions for completing the poll:

1. When you open the poll, you will see specific dates in September. Ignore these dates. Just pay attention to the DAYS OF THE WEEK.
2. I have different hours free each day of the week. The hours are listed at the top of each column.
3. Put one vote in each column according the usefulness of the hours to you.

Thanks

It was incredibly crowded in Eliot 314 this morning. So, even though I love the room (it's where I started teaching back in 1989), the sunlight, the traffic sounds from Eliot circle, the difficulty of seeing the white boards from certain locations, and I know you love it too ...

we will meet for lecture (a true *lecture*) in the Psych auditorium Wed, Sep 2, 9 AM. See you in our new location.

The Registrar's Office has reassigned lab and/or conference sections for several students. Please check your class schedule this weekend to see whether it has been affected. If changes were made, they were made for a reason. You must attend your assigned section for now (note: labs do not meet this week), but there is a small chance (described below) that you can change your section again.

This site will be updated periodically during summer '09. You can still look at the entire site, including all of the posts from '08-09, but not much has changed yet. Major changes will get announced by adding to this post. If you have nothing better to do, check back every few days. [last changes posted 8/30/09, see below]

Pre-registration for fall

• You must complete the pre-requisites for Chem 201 before you can pre-register. That means if you took intro chem (the equivalent of Chem 101/102, lecture + lab) at another school this summer, you need to provide evidence of satisfactory completion of these courses to Reed's Registrar's Office before SOLAR will allow you to pre-register for Chem 201. This requirement may create some difficulties for summer students at PSU (and possibly elsewhere) because the PSU summer term ends on Wed, Aug 26 and pre-registration at Reed is Fri, Aug 28. If you bring me a signed note on Th-F, Aug 27-28, from your PSU chemistry instructor (email is also acceptable) that says you have completed PSU Chem 221/222/223 with grades of C- or better, I will allow you to pre-register for Chem 201 by overriding SOLAR. [posted 8/10/09]
  

Changes

• Idiosyncratic study tips updated [posted 8/30/09]
  
• Fast Facts pages have been updated [posted 8/24/09]
• New syllabus [posted 8/24/09]
• New lab schedule. Some (all?) navigation links within the lab manual have been updated. The four pages inside the Lab Info section have been updated and should be read by 201 students before the first lab. [posted 8/15/09]
• New exam schedule [posted 8/12/09]
  
• New homework schedule [posted 8/12/09]
  
• New textbook and study guide/solutions manual [posted 7/6/09]

Summer reading

• "The Promise of a Cure: 20 Years and Counting". The inability of gene therapy to deliver a treatment for cystic fibrosis and the role of conventional (small organic molecule) treatments is reviewed in this interesting, non-technical article (Science, 19 June 2009, 324, 1504-1507, listen to podcast interview with author Jennifer Couzin-Frankel).
• "Antibiotics in Nature: Beyond Biological Warfare". Scientists are challenging the conventional paradigm that fungi and bacteria use antibiotic molecules to kill off microbial competitors. According to these scientists, antibiotics could be used for communication and metabolism (Science, 26 June 2009, 324, 1637-1639).