An honors-level track in Chemistry is being offered and is directed to approximately 40 students (out of approximately 600 enrollees in General Chemistry) who exhibit exceptional aptitude and strong preparation in chemistry. It is designed for prospective chemistry, biochemistry, and biology majors, and in addition to teaching chemical principles, it discusses exciting modern applications of chemistry in areas such as human health care, drug design, and the development of new materials. In the first semester of their studies, these students enroll in both a lecture course, entitled Principles of Modern Chemistry, and a laboratory course, entitled Modern Chemistry Laboratory. Modern Chemistry Laboratory is intended to communicate the excitement of modern chemical research while providing the students with a firm grounding in the basic procedures of chemical experimentation. Toward these ends, the laboratory is designed and organized around three principles: (1) The students are introduced to the major fields of chemistry through use of a modular organization that clusters experiments into the areas of physical, organic, inorganic, and biological chemistry. Analytical chemistry can be incorporated into each of these units through the use of a variety of instrumental and analytical techniques. (2) As instrumentation plays a major role in all areas of chemical research, the students are introduced to the use of instrumentation early in the course and instrumental techniques play a major role in the experiments. The techniques of ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy play a particularly important role in several of the experiments, reflecting their wide use across many areas of chemistry. (3) All of the students complete the semester by undertaking a short synthetic or analytical project that involves collaborative work with one of the research laboratories in the Chemistry Department. They may, for example, undertake a relatively simple preparation of a compound which will be used by an organic or inorganic research group in synthetic work. Or they may perform kinetic measurements on an enzyme currently under study by a biochemical research group. In connection with this project, the students visit the research lab that has originated the project and speak with the researchers involved. This project serves the dual purpose of giving the students an opportunity to apply the techniques they have learned during the semester and engaging their interest through the knowledge that the material they are preparing or the measurements they are conducting will not be `thrown away,` but will become part of an ongoing research project.
