Search

Given the severe pollution caused by traditional plastics, biodegradable plastic products (BPPs) have received great attention and are appearing in people's lives in the form of packaging bags, tableware, etc. Whether a wide variety of BPPs can truly degrade depends on the environment. Aerobic composting is the arbitration method to evaluate the degradability of BPPs in a premarket review, so only the aerobic degradability of BPPs can be guaranteed. Anaerobic digestion has become an irreplaceable part of the global carbon cycle and a mainstream technique to dispose of organic wastes. However, little attention has been given to the anaerobic degradation of BPPs, which may cause environmental pollution if BPPs are not degraded within a short time period. Students are not aware of these issues. Therefore, the teacher carried out teaching reforms in biochemistry course by designing anaerobic degradation of commercially available BPPs as a laboratory exercise for undergraduate students to form a correct understanding of the actual anaerobic degradation performance of BPPs, establish a more comprehensive theoretical knowledge framework of catabolism in biochemistry course, and train their hands-on ability and operation skills. This paper provides an introduction to the experimental design and teaching process of the anaerobic degradation of BPPs, and the results show that the degradation degree and rate are closely related to the components of BPPs. The results of the quizzes and questionnaires show that teaching reform is not only beneficial for deepening students' impression and understanding of anaerobic catabolism from ubiquitous BPPs in everyday life but also helpful for promoting their environmental awareness by selecting and using BPPs with better degradability. This teaching reform offers references and guidance for the teaching practice in courses like biochemistry, environmental microbiology, environmental chemistry, and waste treatment.

Many studies have reported various interventions to increase critical thinking, but very few studies have examined the impact of learning in classrooms and laboratories. This study aimed to find a learning pattern (practice to theory or theory to practice) in improving students' critical thinking skills (CTs). Pre and posttest nonequivalent group design was employed in this study. Eighty preservice chemistry teachers divided 40 students in experimental class 1 and 40 in experimental class 2. A test of enzyme-CTs was developed to measure student CTs before and after the intervention. The result showed that integrated biochemistry courses could improve students' CTs. An independent sample t-test was employed, and the result showed a significant difference N-gain students' CTs between experimental classes 1 and 2 (p = 0.018). It indicates that the pattern of developing CTs from practice to theory is better than theory to practice. The research result can be taken into consideration for placing biochemistry theory and biochemistry practicum in the same semester for the chemistry or chemistry education curriculum. Students can find concepts independently in practical activities and develop them in theoretical activities. Further research should analyze the discriminant factors that differentiate between students in experimental classes 1 and 2.

Gamification has a strong track record of improving student engagement and learning in the chemical sciences. Meta-analyses of different approaches to gamification have highlighted that providing a game fiction, encouraging students to work in teams, and breaking games into smaller "quests" are particularly effective. Here, we aimed to increase students' engagement and learning with four analytical biochemistry techniques (high-performance liquid chromatography, sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, Western blot, and mass spectrometry) by creating a game that required them to use every method to solve a "murder mystery". Our game was based on the popular games "Mafia" and "Among Us" and introduced an original game fiction relevant to our setting. Students attending the formative gamified session gave highly positive feedback. They indicated that they enjoyed the session and increased confidence in the methods involved. Free text comments praised many of the elements deliberately introduced into the game. To our surprise, the main criticism was that the session was not challenging enough. We developed a revised session that required students to undertake more detailed data interpretation, which students reported gave the expected increase in difficulty. All materials and code for running our session and generating new mysteries with original data are available online.

Electrophoresis is integral to analytical and biochemistry experiences in undergraduate education; however, fundamental principles of the method are often taught in upper-level laboratories through hands-on experiences. A laboratory activity is reported that teaches the concepts of electrophoretic mobility and electroosmotic flow. A single reuseable instrument, called a mini-E, costs 37 USD and consists of a DC power supply, a voltmeter, platinum electrodes, and a chip cast in polydimethylsiloxane. This activity uses common reagents costing only 0.02 USD per student. Experiments are devised that allow students to investigate the properties of electrophoretic flow and electroosmotic flow by separating the two commonly used food dyeing agents Brilliant Blue FCF and Allura Red AC in vinegar and in a solution of ammonium hydroxide. A dark-purple mixture of these dyes is separated into red and blue bands that are easily visualized. The migration order of the dyes differs when the separation is performed under conditions of reversed polarity and suppressed electroosmotic flow (vinegar) compared to conditions of normal polarity and active electroosmotic flow (ammonium hydroxide). When delivered to chemistry majors, students had a significant gain in their ability to apply the concepts of electroosmosis and electrophoresis to predict analyte migration. Although this activity targets upper-level chemistry content, it can also be adapted for other laboratory experiences.

The high level of consumption of processed foods has an effect on human health. The consumption of doughnuts, pastries, fried chicken, French fried potatoes, snack chips, and imitation cheese is high among teenagers. These foods are generally rich in fats, although the focus has often been on the quantity rather than the quality of these fats. These products often contain saturated and trans fatty acids, which have adverse effects on triglycerides and cholesterol levels and raise lipoprotein(a) levels in plasma. These modifications are associated with the risk of developing certain health conditions, such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. It is important to note that not all fats have this negative effect on health. Dietary fats are an essential part that cannot be substituted for a healthy diet. A diet rich in healthy fats, such as monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, has an important benefit in human health. For this reason, it is crucial to read, identify, and interpret food labels in processed food to identify the presence of saturated or trans fats and choose healthier alternatives. Therefore, in this workshop, students in the first year of baccalaureate extracted oils and fats from a range of processed foods, quantifying and characterizing their nature by analyzing their fatty acid composition by gas chromatography. Subsequently, students compared their results according to the information given on the food package label and the literature. Finally, the students gave a talk on the work done in the laboratory and the knowledge gained from the students in lower grades, third and fourth years of high school, to raise awareness among these students.

Specifications grading is a relatively recent approach to assessing student learning. In this approach, students make progress toward completion of a course by demonstrating mastery of specific skills or material. The assessment tools are short, frequent exercises that can be attempted multiple times until mastered. This contrasts with the traditional, exam-based assessment of student learning. There are multiple benefits to the specifications grading-based strategy, including reduced test anxiety, better knowledge retention, and increased flexibility. In this study, specifications grading was implemented into an upper-level biochemistry course at a private, liberal arts university. The student cohort consisted almost exclusively of junior and senior biochemistry, biology, and chemistry majors. Students earned points for demonstrating mastery on each of 12 short quizzes in addition to points earned from laboratory exercises and on the cumulative final exam. Student attitudes were assessed using three surveys that were administered at the beginning, middle, and end of the course. The survey results indicated that the students had overall favorable opinions of the specifications grading approach and its use in this course. A comparison of student performance on the quizzes to their performance on the final exam showed that the students learned and retained the course material. Combining the survey and performance data, we demonstrated that the students' perceptions of their learning correlated well with their performances on the specifications grading tools. Together, these results indicated that specifications grading is an effective approach to assessing student learning and to maintaining student enthusiasm in an upper-level biochemistry course.

Chemical reactions that mimic the function of ATP hydrolysis in biochemistry are of current interest in nonequilibrium systems chemistry. The formation of transient bonds from these reactions can drive molecular machines or generate materials with time-dependent properties. While the behavior of these systems can be complicated, the underlying chemistry is often simple: they are therefore potentially interesting topics for undergraduate introductory organic chemistry students, combining state-of-the-art advances in systems chemistry with straightforward reactions. Here, a teaching experiment has been developed that explores the transient assembly of benzoic acid derivatives driven by carbodiimide hydration. Working in teams, students examine the formation and decomposition of anhydrides from two benzoic acids using a carbodiimide "fuel". The students examine classic reaction kinetics of anhydride hydrolysis using two independent methods, NMR and IR spectroscopies. They then explore how the amount of carbodiimide affects the lifetimes of precipitates of benzoic anhydride as a simple example of out-of-equilibrium self-assembly.

As a strategy to carry out a better achievement in the Biochemistry course, undergraduate dentistry education manage a traditional course on the basic concepts of general chemistry necessary in the understanding of Biochemistry. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of learning outcome, we aimed to develop an evaluation tool that was applied to first-year dental students before and after receiving the general chemistry classes. Randomized trial consisted of 50 items distributed in 10 categories. The evaluation was applied to the students who took the Oral Biology course in the periods comprising 2020, 2021, and 2022 to a population of 109 students. Our results showed that after receiving the course the improvement rate was 20.71% with significant differences in each category. In conclusion, the introductory course allows students coming from different school systems to attend Biochemistry with similar knowledge of general chemistry.

An exploratory study was to determine the effectiveness of discussion sessions as a teaching strategy of thermodynamics in basic physical chemistry of fundamental concepts in this area as spontaneity by explaining students according to their ideas. A previously validated questionnaire was used as an instrument on thermochemistry, enthalpies of bonding, and Gibbs function. The performance of the students who participated in the intervention was compared with that of a control group to which the afore mentioned teaching strategy was not applied. The students of the intervened group explained with a higher academic level the concept of spontaneity than those of the control group reaching the level of the development of the process of effective chemical reasoning (DECRP) of the taxonomy of barrow and bloom.

Enzyme-like catalysis is the use of artificial catalysts to catalyze chemical reactions, which has the characteristics of enzymatic catalysis, such as high selectivity, high efficiency, and mild reaction conditions. In recent years, 2D materials, thickness ranging from a single to several atomic layers, have become a hot research topic in the field of materials, while 2D materials happen to have enzyme-like catalysis property. Among them, 2H-MoS[subscript 2] is easy to peel away to form the 2D structure due to covalent bonds between S-Mo-Sin each layer and van der Waals forces between layers. Meanwhile, using a mechanical solid-phase chemical method to produce its S defect, the S defect can significantly improve the catalytic efficiency and achieve rapid catalytic oxidation of TMB (3,3,5,5-tetramethylbenzidine) for quantitative detection of trace ascorbic acid. The experiment described in this study is designed for senior undergraduates majoring in chemistry, materials, chemical engineering, catalysis, etc., as part of their training in comprehensive chemical experimentation. This experiment can introduce students to the synthesis of 2D materials, enzyme-like catalytic reactions, and the principles for the use of analytical instruments. Integrating this experiment into undergraduate teaching will (1) stimulate students to think about developing innovative detection methods answering to actual scientific and social needs; (2) familiarize the students with serious and rigorous scientific method through the process of exploring and optimizing detection methods; and (3) increase students' understanding of catalytic analysis and detection through exploration of innovative detection methods, thereby raising their practical skills to a high-level.

The application of chemistry concepts in biological settings plays an important role in the interdisciplinary field of drug discovery and development. This is true for molecular docking, where an understanding of intermolecular forces and noncovalent interactions is useful for rational drug design and development. Here we report the design and use of a molecular docking activity for cancer drug discovery for users that requires minimal coding knowledge. Although used in a drug discovery context, this activity can be incorporated into a range of undergraduate/graduate chemistry and biochemistry courses either as a stand-alone activity or integrated into existing curricula. The activity uses AutoDock Vina, AutoDockTools, Strawberry Perl, and PyMOL, all of which are free, open-source software. The activity is used to carry out molecular docking of multiple ligands at once and predict the binding energy of hits identified from a high-throughput drug repurposing screen against a target enzyme overexpressed in human tumors. Students analyze their docking results to determine drugs that should go on to further "in vitro" testing based on the predicted noncovalent ligand--protein interactions. This activity serves as an introduction to molecular docking and as a review of intermolecular forces, highlighting their importance in biological fields.

Developing and exploring new tools to engage students in the learning process have been major foci of chemistry education research. Creative exercises are one such tool that has drawn increasing interest from researchers over the past decade. While studies have reported the impact of creative exercises on learning and types of student responses generated, how the students engage with these particular exercises has yet to be explored. This study seeks to fill this gap within the literature by exploring student approaches to the creative exercises, within the context of biochemistry, through semistructured, think-aloud interviews. Analysis of 10 participant interviews investigated how undergraduate biochemistry students actively and verbally engaged in creative exercises. Findings reveal the variation in how the participants approached the creative exercises as well as the role that the course modality played in shaping the student approaches.

As e-commerce increases, the demand for packaging materials and the potential for generating waste and negative environmental impacts also rise. Packing peanuts are a type of plastic packaging material that are used to protect goods during the shipping process. Petroleum-based plastics are common packaging materials due to their low cost, light weight, and versatility. Traditional packing peanuts are made of polystyrene, which is not biodegradable and contributes to landfill waste. Starch-based packing peanuts are biobased and a more sustainable alternative. This article describes the implementation and assessment of a hands-on laboratory activity appropriate for high school students (ages 14 to 18). In the lab, students create cornstarch-based packing peanuts with different properties and carry out follow-up experiments to test the peanuts' performance. This article includes observations and student data that were collected from implementation in four science classes predominantly at rural high schools in a Southeastern state in the U.S. This lab can be adapted to chemistry, environmental science, and physical science classes to augment lessons on topics such as polymers, polarity, bonding, and renewable and nonrenewable resources.

Tofu, a traditional Chinese food, is now popular worldwide. However, few people notice the chemistry that is involved in its production. To shed light on this, we have designed a simple demonstration for lower-level undergraduates in organic chemistry or biochemistry courses to help them understand the chemistry principles that underlie the curdling step in tofu processing. Raw soymilk is relatively stable without heating, even with the addition of coagulants. However, heat treatment denatures the soy proteins in soymilk, which makes them more amenable to coagulation. This coagulation is further promoted with salt coagulants, such as calcium gluconate, zinc gluconate, and calcium lactate. Acid coagulants such as white vinegar or grape, orange, and lemon juice can also induce coagulation due to their acidic properties. Based on our results and on previous reports, we illustrate the curdling mechanism in this work. This demonstration can also be used as an at-home experiment during lab closure situations, such as a pandemic, and can arouse students' curiosity about the coagulation of other food proteins and the process of making alternative tofu.

There is emerging recognition that mechanistic reasoning about scientific phenomena as well as developing an interdisciplinary understanding of science are valuable for student success. Our team of chemistry, biology, and teacher education researchers strives to support students in their interdisciplinary learning and engage them in causal mechanistic reasoning (CMR), a thinking strategy that involves identifying underlying entities and their properties and linking these ideas to explain or predict a target phenomenon. We aim to help students build connections between their undergraduate chemistry and biology courses through engagement with carefully developed activities, which can be administered in a range of courses. In this study, we explored how students in 7 different chemistry, biology, or biochemistry courses engaged in CMR about preferential protein-ligand binding, a biological phenomenon that requires an understanding of core chemistry ideas like atomic properties and electrostatics. Explanations varied from noncausal mechanistic to fully causal mechanistic across all courses; however, students co-enrolled in molecular biology and second semester general chemistry did not differ in their engagement in CMR when situated in each course. Student responses provided evidence of activation of different conceptual resources, including charge, polarity, and space, to explain this phenomenon. Lastly, correct predictions about the preferred binding site were highly correlated with fully engaged CMR, showing compelling evidence for the power of this thinking strategy. This task effectively elicits CMR in both chemistry and biology courses, thus making it a potential tool for helping students build connections across disciplinary silos they experience in undergraduate science curricula.

The use of molecular models in chemistry and biochemistry classes is very effective in helping students understand covalent bonds and the chemical structure of molecules. However, conventional molecular models cannot represent intermolecular interactions such as hydrogen bonds and electrostatic interactions. Herein, we describe 3D printed molecular models of nucleobases with the S and N poles of neodymium magnets placed as the donor and acceptor atoms of hydrogen bonds, respectively. The molecular models, called BasePairPuzzle, allow the user to experience manually how molecular recognition occurs when molecules attract or repel each other. This helps to understand the concept of hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions. By playing with two or more molecular parts, by attaching and detaching them, users can understand and realize various biological phenomena at the molecular level, such as why DNA forms complementary A-T and G-C base pairs to store genetic information, how DNA mutations can occur, and how nucleic acids can form various noncomplementary base pairs to have complex structures and functions other than storing and transmitting genetic information. In addition, for professional research scientists, the molecular models can support the discovery of new molecular design ideas in drug discovery and nanotechnology.

Digestion is a fundamentally important process for an individual's life. However, the physical process of digestion is hidden inside the body, making it challenging to understand and a particularly difficult topic for students to learn in the classroom. Traditional approaches to teaching body processes include a mixture of textbook teaching and visual learning. However, digestion is not particularly visual. This activity is designed to engage students using a combination of visual, inquiry-based, and experiential learning approaches and introduces the scientific method to students in secondary school. The laboratory simulates digestion, creating a "stomach" inside of a clear vial. Students fill the vials with a protease solution and visually observe the digestion of food. By making predictions about the types of biomolecules that will be digested, students begin to learn and understand basic biochemistry in a relatable context, while simultaneously understanding anatomical and physiological concepts. We trialled this activity at two schools, where we received positive feedback from teachers and students, indicating that the practical enhanced student understanding of the digestion process. We see this lab as a valuable learning activity that can be extended broadly across multiple classrooms around the world.

The construction and characterization of a glucose biosensor has been implemented in an instrumental chemical analysis course to provide students experience with chemical sensing, electroanalytical methods, and flow injection analysis (FIA). The glucose biosensor was assembled on a glassy carbon electrode by depositing a layer of Prussian blue (PB) electrocatalyst followed by a layer of glucose oxidase (GOx) immobilized in a Nafion film. GOx catalyzed the oxidation of glucose in the presence of dissolved oxygen to yield gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide. The hydrogen peroxide produced was then electrocatalytically reduced at the PB film with a mild applied potential. The measured cathodic current provided the analytical signal for the glucose biosensor, which was applied to the quantification of glucose levels in soft drinks using FIA techniques. This experiment exposes students to several electroanalytical methods, including amperometry, cyclic voltammetry, and chronocoulometry, as well as methods that are used to measure biosensor response, deposit the PB film, measure the PB film coverage, and examine its electrocatalytic properties. In addition, students gain experience with FIA and the application of an enzyme-based biosensor.

During the COVID-19 pandemic we developed an activity that encourages engagement with scientific reading and helps students to improve their reading skills as a complement to the glycobiology section of an undergraduate course of biological chemistry. Using "Genially," an online platform for gamification and self-taught learning, we designed the activity named "Discovering a glycoprotein: The case of the H,K-ATPase" based on the characterization of the [beta]-subunit of the gastric H,K-ATPase, a glycoprotein discovered in the 1960s. While testing users' knowledge in glycobiology, the game invites them to follow the research steps throughout four missions, where the experimental details and their results are presented. After solving the missions, participants were invited to answer a questionnaire through "Google forms." Our results showed that the game is useful for students as it introduces an innovative way of analyzing a scientific article different from the conventional activities that students typically face without teacher assistance and in many cases do not complete. We expect that our pilot-study will be an additional boost for the implementation of gamification in the science classroom, and in turn, serve as an example of the importance of gamification in future teacher training as an assisting tool to traditional education methods.

The purpose of the presented article is to evaluate the students' perception of the online teaching educational model as a part of the "Biochemistry with Elements of Chemistry" course conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic at the Faculty of Medicine of the Jagiellonian University Medical College. The first part of the article reflects upon the pandemic impact on the transition from the in-person (standard format) to a complete remote learning format. The next part is based on the responses of the students to a questionnaire and presents an analysis of the students' preferences and perceptions regarding synchronous and asynchronous teaching methods. Students answered questions about the advantages and disadvantages of distance learning programs. They indicated the most suitable learning mode in terms of gaining knowledge and enhancing their motivation to learn. They listed factors that facilitated remote learning as well as those which made it difficult and posed a challenge to adjust to the new system, in all types of classes, that is, lectures, seminars, and laboratories. The last part of this paper presents the results of the students' performance in the pandemic-enforced system and compares them with the results from the previous class of students from the past year, when teaching was conducted mainly in the standard format. The conclusions from the given analysis may enable beneficial changes for the "Biochemistry with Elements of Chemistry" course for remote teaching in the future. It may also provide valuable insights for such types of courses conducted at other Universities and promote deliberations to continuously improve learning outcomes.

This research developed learning activities for students to explore and connect the concepts of acid-base titration, equivalence points, pK[subscript a], and molar absorption coefficients. Polyphenolic compounds consisting of p-coumaric acid (CMA), caffeic acid (CFA), and 3,4,5-trihydroxycinnamic acid (3,4,5-THCA) were selected as study models. The inquiry-based learning activities consisted of four phases, including in-classroom, prelaboratory discussion, in-laboratory work, and postlaboratory discussion. This research was conducted through a single group pretest-posttest design, and the learning activities were implemented with biochemistry undergraduate students. Data were collected using conceptual pretest and posttest, questionnaires, and laboratory reports. The paired-sample t test results showed that the mean posttest score (51.29 ± 10.46) was significantly higher than the mean pretest score (19.00 ± 5.90). The results implied that students had a better understanding of the concepts and the links between the concepts of acid-base titration, pK[subscript a], equivalence points, and molar absorption coefficients. These findings were supported by information from questionnaires and laboratory reports. The results showed that the students had moderately positive attitudes toward laboratory activities, the instructor, and the content. Overall, the results indicated that the laboratory activities embedded with the inquiry-based approach were effective, as they enhanced the students' understanding of concepts and promoted students' positive attitudes toward laboratory activities.

In the current day and age, innovation is the fodder that keeps companies and institutions running, and universities play an important role. During the crisis and in the post-crisis period, financial support for research and development have undergone significant changes especially at universities. The aim of this research is to conduct a patent focus analysis of the public and state universities in the Czech Republic and to analyze the development in patenting focus structure and to identify perspective and suitable research area. Hierarchical clustering was chosen for its clustering overview clarity and due to the relatively small sample size. Ward's method was chosen as the clustering algorithm with squared Euclidean distance as the system of measurement. Each cluster was characterized by five dominant IPC subsections to describe the patent focus. The patent focus segmentation of 115 public and state universities identified five main groups: medical/pharmacological, material, organic, construction and mixed measuring and material processing. Universities today are centers of knowledge. In addition, they support the innovation that spurs economic activity in a society. Universities have the potential to spur industrial activity with innovation and then pass information on to private firms.

Creative thinking is needed in 21st century learning. This quantitative study aimed to determine whether chemistry education students at Universitas Jambi have the initial ability of creative thinking. The type of research that is used is a research design survey that is strengthened by the results of interviews to support the results of quantitative data. Where the number of all samples from this study was 188 college students with details of 140 female and 48 male college students from 4th semester chemistry education students who were taken based on purposive sampling technique. Data were then analyzed using SPSS 21 application to find descriptive statistics in the form of mean, median, min, max, and category. From the results of the analysis conducted, it was found that there were students' creative thinking abilities in chemistry subjects in bio-chemical material indicated by sensitivity indicators which had a good category of 44.7% (84 of 188), fluency indicators had a good category of 41.5% (78 of 188), the flexibility indicator has a good category of 40.4% (76 of 188), the originality indicator has a category of 43.1% (81 of 188), and the elaboration indicator has a category of 39.4% (74 of 188).

Case studies are helpful teaching tools that can bring scientific concepts to life. Here, we present a case study related to protein-ligand interactions, amino acids, protein structure, and protein modification. While protein-ligand interaction is a foundational concept within Biochemistry, there are few available case studies that focus on this topic. This case study guides students through the scientific thought process and experimental order that could be used to answer questions regarding the role of tau in the etiology of Alzheimer's disease, based on realistic interactions of tau and microtubules. This case study was trialed in multiple contexts: in a single class period in a one-semester Biochemistry class for nonmajors and as an at-home assignment in a two-semester Biochemistry sequence for Biochemistry majors. A survey of student responses indicate that this case study was helpful in improving student creative problem-solving and student understanding of real-world applications related to protein-ligand interactions.

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) incorporate research opportunities into the existing curriculum often by providing alternatives or replacing the traditional cookbook-based laboratory courses. Over the past 50 years, CURE courses have been shown to benefit both students and faculty members alike. Despite the large number of available publications on CUREs, few focus on their implementation at the first-year level. This article reports the design and implementation of a new interdisciplinary CURE based on antibiotic discovery that combines General Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Microbiology concepts allowing self-enrolled first-year students to satisfy the requirements for General Chemistry Laboratory I. The applicability and success of this CURE course is demonstrated through the significance of student-generated experimental results, improvement in competence tests, and affective surveys.

Little is known concerning chemistry and biochemistry majors' understanding of research and scientific inquiry. In this three-year qualitative research study, chemistry and biochemistry majors were interviewed before and after participating in a National Science Foundation-sponsored Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program at a private urban research university in the Northeastern United States to learn about their conceptions of research, its purpose, and process. Participation in undergraduate research was found to inform students' understanding of the structure and practice of research, promote the resolution of several well-known misconceptions (theory vs hypothesis and proof), and understanding of research as an inherently social human endeavor. Nonetheless, evidence was also found that their understanding of some research elements, including the role of publication and the ethical and sociocultural dimensions of research, may be limited. This gap may be due to the students' limited opportunities for active engagement in these areas during the relatively short 10 week REU time frame. These findings can potentially impact the practice of undergraduate research as they relate to student researchers' epistemic development and call for further investigations into how undergraduate research informs students' understanding of research and scientific inquiry.

An integrated laboratory experience using metal--organic frameworks (MOFs), a nanoporous and crystalline extended solid material composed of metal cations and organic linkers, was developed and adopted for upper-division, major-level chemistry and biochemistry students. In this laboratory, students were guided through the facile solvothermal synthesis of four MOFs: UiO-66, UiO-66-NH[subscript 2], ZIF-8, and ZIF-67. Characterization, specifically powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) were used to evaluate the crystallinity, morphology, and composition of the MOFs, respectively. Students then investigated the effects of measurement conditions (MOF dosage, MOF surface charge, and charge density of dye counterions) on the removal of dyes from aqueous solutions using the synthesized MOFs. Through the utilization of Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and UV-vis spectroscopy, students confirmed the binding of dyes and quantified the amounts of dye removed from solution. Students found that all four porous and crystalline MOFs removed acid orange 7 and malachite green from water, but ZIF-67 exhibited the highest adsorption capacity of 30 mg of acid orange 7 per gram of ZIF-67 at a dosage of 5 mg. This laboratory experience allows students to apply and connect concepts found in general, organic, inorganic, and physical chemistry while simultaneously getting introduced to various instrumentation and lab techniques within a growing field in materials chemistry. Exposure to this field can help stimulate student interest, expose them to sustainability problems and potential solutions, and implement strategies to help solve these challenges.

As a representative catabolic reaction that widely exists in nature, anaerobic digestion (AD) exhibits great value regarding the global carbon cycle, renewable energy development, and environmental protection. Such an important biochemical reaction was ignored before and should be introduced into the teaching and textbooks of undergraduate biochemistry courses. However, students may face obstructions when learning AD theories since the metabolic pathways in AD are very complex. To solve these problems, an instructive metabolic minimap of the AD reaction was designed, including its reaction stages, reaction pathways, substrates, and enzymes. Furthermore, the interrelationships between aerobic catabolism (AEC) and anaerobic catabolism (ANC) were also summarized by combining the catabolic pathways of typical biological macromolecules. In this paper, AD theories were first replenished into undergraduate biochemistry courses by metabolic minimap, which not only provided valuable supports for the practical teaching of AD in undergraduate biochemistry courses, but also acted as an important reference for students in biology-related majors and biochemistry teachers.

Many disciplines have used concept inventories (CI) to better understand the alternative ideas held by students. Administering a CI at both the beginning and the end of the semester can yield much information. For example, a comparison of both pre- and post-test responses can help determine if specific gains in student learning were met. In this paper, we describe the development of a concept inventory over four academic years for the one-semester general, organic, and biochemistry (GOB) course required for nursing students. Questions were designed around course topics and to identify common misconceptions, which were gathered from the literature, student interviews, and content experts. The instrument was refined over several iterations to ensure that all questions were appropriate and understandable while providing useful information. The final version demonstrated appropriate gains in the comparison of pre- and post-test results for an active learning classroom and results are discussed. In addition, item quality was ascertained via the discrimination and difficulty values, and Cronbach's alpha coefficient was computed for the entire test as a measure of its reliability.

In recent years there has been an increased emphasis on recruiting and retaining STEM students in order for the United States to retain its position as a leader in STEM fields (President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, (2012), Report to the president, engage to excel: Producing one million additional college graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; Chen, X. (2013), STEM attrition: College students' paths into and out of STEM fields). Knowing that choice of major and choice of career are closely related (Negru-Subtirica O. and Pop E. I., (2018), Reciprocal associations between educational identity and vocational identity in adolescence: a three-wave longitudinal investigation, "J. Youth Adolesc.," 47, 703-716; Negru-Subtirica et al. (2018), Good omens? The intricate relations between educational and vocational identity in adolescence, "Eur. J. Dev. Psychol.," 15(1), 83-98), it is important that we understand what students know about careers available in the field of chemistry as well as what they know about what those careers are like. In this study, qualitative methodology was utilized using narrative inquiry and case study analysis methods in order to capture the lived experiences of six senior-status chemistry and biochemistry majors at a mid-sized, Midwestern university. Participants were interviewed, narratives were constructed from their interview transcripts, and the narratives were used as case studies that were compared to one another. It was found that students are not fully aware of the careers available to them with a degree in chemistry or biochemistry or what the career options they did identify were like on a day-to-day basis. It was also noted that resources are not distributed evenly to all students and that there were resources that were missing that students would have liked to have access to. Suggestions for improvement in chemistry career education are discussed along with limitations of the study and ideas for future work.

Techniques and instrumentation that involve fluorescence are used in many careers related to biology and biochemistry. However, due to the expense of instrumentation, the theory and practice of fluorescence spectroscopy is commonly concentrated in instrumental analysis in most curricula, a class rarely required for biology and biochemistry majors. Biochemistry represents a course taken by these majors, providing an opportunity to expose them to the fundamentals of fluorescence. A three session laboratory series has been developed where the kinetic analysis of lactate dehydrogenase is carried out through the use of inexpensive, student-built fluorometers. These instruments are optimized for the detection of NADH fluorescence and constructed with interlocking building blocks (such as LEGO blocks), an LED source, a phototransistor detector, and other commercially available materials for a total cost of $52. Biochemistry students have built these spectrometers and used them to determine the K[subscript m] of "Gallus gallus" lactate dehydrogenase for L-lactate and the k[subscript cat] of this enzyme in accordance with literature values. Learning outcomes were assessed and indicate proficient understanding of instrument use and design.

Does early exposure to information literacy promote long-term student success? This paper describes a longitudinal case study testing the hypothesis that students who engage with scientific literature and develop information literacy early in their undergraduate studies will achieve higher grades on literature-based assignments in future coursework. We reasoned that students with previous experience in the scientific literature will develop more efficient and effective strategies to search and evaluate the literature and will ultimately favor higher-quality journals. To test these hypotheses, student performance data were collected during scientific literature-based assignments in two upper-division undergraduate lecture courses, Biochemistry 1 and Biochemistry 2. Data were analyzed from two student populations: students with prior information literacy instruction and critical practice from an Honors General Chemistry course sequence, and those students who had not undergone this training. The results indicate that, in Biochemistry 1, students with this prior information literacy training tend to use more professional, expert-like tools for exploring scientific literature and earn statistically higher scores on literature-based projects. However, by Biochemistry 2, the gaps close in both the exploration of the scientific literature and grade performance. This indicates that once students develop a foundation in information literacy, their sophistication in finding information and their performance on subsequent literature-based tasks improve. There was a small and statistically insignificant tendency for groups containing more students with prior information literacy training to cite more articles from the primary literature. However, the quality of the citations, as measured by journal impact factors, did not differ between the populations. The results of this interdisciplinary case study suggest that teaching information literacy to science students has both immediate and long-lasting benefits.

In this laboratory experiment, students evaluated three silver(I) complexes as potential additives for dental adhesives based on bacterial growth inhibition, heat stability, water insolubility, and cost-effectiveness. Each student prepared and analyzed a cyanoxime ligand and its corresponding silver(I) complex. Students characterized the antibacterial activity of the silver complexes against "E." coli using a Kirby-Bauer disk-diffusion test. Laboratory data were shared among students to compare observed properties to determine which derivative is the most suitable. This multiweek experiment was used in inorganic chemistry laboratory courses to demonstrate the application of inorganic chemistry to biomedicine. The framework of the experiment was developed by a multi-institutional collaboration, and we highlight how the general procedures of the experiment were adapted to meet the needs of varying courses and contexts.