Policies

• Homepage
• The Honor Principle & Ethical Science
• Lab Hours & Rooms
• Responsibility for Lab Equipment
• Instructor Expectations
• Preparing for Lab

Instructor Expectations

Chemistry 201 course grades include a 20% contribution from the lab portion of the course. In addition to this calculation, because Chemistry 201 is a lecture-lab course, we maintain this basic requirement for earning a passing grade in the course: passing grades will be reserved for students who demonstrate satisfactory participation in the lab over the course of the semester.

This means:

• making a satisfactory effort to follow instructions and complete assigned work
• keeping a complete and detailed lab notebook*
• turning in appropriately detailed lab reports for all experiments*

Students who consistently demonstrate satisfactory participation in all three areas will earn at least 80% of the contribution (25%) that lab makes to their overall grade.

Let us reassure you on one point … satisfactory participation does not mean that you will, or must, obtain a satisfactory outcome for every experiment. An experiment is, by its very nature, an event with an uncertain outcome. You will not be penalized for routine lab mistakes — one frequently learns more from a mistake that has been understood fully than from something done correctly, but inattentively — and you will not be penalized for instructor mistakes or misdirection. What we expect of you is this: that you will follow instructions as best you can, come to lab prepared, and pay attention to what is going on in your apparatus and around you.

*Instructions for keeping a lab notebook and writing lab reports are provided in the lab manual’s appendices. Additional ideas on these topics can be found in the recommended lab text, “Making the Connections” by Padias.

Continue to Policies: Preparing for lab…