Integrating Computational Chemistry in the General Chemistry Laboratory

Computational Chemistry and molecular modeling have become important tools in many areas of chemistry research. In order to introduce students to these tools and provide visual models of chemical processes, several computational studies are proposed for a general chemistry laboratory course. The computational studies are coupled with traditional wet laboratory experiments. Students perform the computational studies to visualize what is occurring at the molecular level and to make connections to the overall chemistry topics, including orbitals, bonding, acid dissociation, and simple chemical reactions. An evaluation on atomic and molecular orbitals was given to the students before and after performing one of these studies. The results show that students were better able to identify different molecular orbital properties and interpret the terminology after performing the computational study.