Chemistry 131-MWF

Fall 2008

Important Starting Dates:

1st Lecture: Sept. 3

NO Lecture: Sept. 5

1st Workshop: Week of Sept. 8

1st Lab Lectures: Sept. 9 &15

1st Lab Session: Weeks of Sept. 9/Sep 15

General Information:

This course is the first semester of an introduction to General Chemistry. Instruction in this course consists of assigned reading, lectures, homework, workshops and laboratory work. Each student is required to participate in all parts of` the instructional program.

1. Lecture Schedule

Lecturer: Professor Todd Krauss

Mon., Wed. & Fri., 1:00-1:50 p.m.

Class will NOT meet 9/5 (convocation), 10/6 (Fall break), 11/26 (Thanksgiving)

Hubbell Aud., Hutchison Hall 141

Workshops: Sections will be assigned during the first week of lecture.

Workshops will meet at various times during the week.

First Workshops meet the week beginning Monday September 8.

Assignments and meeting rooms will be posted on the Chem131-MWF Web page by Friday, September 5.

Laboratory: Professor James Farrar

Lab Supervisor: Dr. David Hickey

First Lab Lectures will be Tuesday Sept. 3 OR Monday Sept. 8

You have registered for a specific Lab Lecture and Laboratory already.

We will try to accommodate necessary changes through email to Dr. David Hickey (email: hickey@chem.rochester.edu).

Depending on your lab section, you will have lab alternate weeks starting the week of Sept. 8th or Sep 15th depending on your Lab Lecture time.

Please go to: www.chem.rochester.edu/~chemlab for more information on ChemLab.

Lab Lecture: James Farrar

Mondays 12:00-12:50 and Tuesdays 12:30-1:20; Hutchison Hall 141.

The first Lab Lectures are on September 2 &8

2. Lecture Textbook and Additional Course Materials:

Required Text:

Steven S. Zumdahl, Chemical Principles;6^th Ed., Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA, 2002.

Supplementary reading and problems may be found in:

Oxtoby & Nachtrieb, Principles of Modern Chemistry, 2nd ed., QD31.2.O98

McQuarrie & Rock, General Chemistry, 2nd ed., QD31.2.M388

Kotz & Purcell, Chemistry & Chemical Reactivity, QD31.2.K68

Segal, Chemistry: Experiment and Theory, QD31.2.S438

Ebbing & Wrighton, General Chemistry, 3rd ed., QD31.2.E22

Brown & LeMay, Jr., Chemistry : The Central Science, 4th ed., QD31.2.B78

Copies of these texts are on two-hour reserve in Carlson Library.

3. Lecture Homework:

Reading and homework assignments will be given weekly during the lecture. (Check the last page of the HW solutions for the previous week for the new assignment.) Questions about homework problems should be addressed to your Workshop leaders during their office hours. Although homework assignments are not collected, these are an essential part of the learning process. The importance of regular working of homework problems cannot be over-emphasized. To emphasize this, at least one problem on each 'Hour Exam' will be almost identical to an assigned problem. Homework solutions will be placed on the Chem131-MWF www page one week after assignment.

4. Workshops:

Workshops give you the opportunity to discuss Chemistry with a small group of other students, under the leadership of a pair of Workshop Leaders. Attendance at Workshops is required and 16% of your grade will be derived from quizzes and Workshop performance. Problem solving within small groups of interacting students is stressed in these sessions. Your Workshop Leaders will have office hours when you can see him or her about your progress in the course or clarify points with which you may be having difficulty.

Workshop section assignments will be made during the 1st week of class and posted on Blackboard by Friday September 5^th.

5. Additional Assistance:

Occasionally students feel the need for tutorial assistance beyond the help available from the workshop instructor. In that event the student can receive assistance from a tutor. A list of potential tutors may be obtained from the Academic Advising office in Lattimore 312, Ext. 5-2354. Students needing assistance or extra practice are also encouraged to join a Study Group, in which you work with 3-4 other students and a leader. This is strongly recommended for students who feel that they cannot learn on their own. Contact Learning Assistance Services, Lattimore 107, Ext. 5-9049, for more information. Regular updates for the times and places will also be posted at the LAS web-site: http://www.rochester.edu/College/las/.

6. Laboratory Work:

All questions regarding ChemLab, the laboratory portion of the course, should be directed to your laboratory teaching assistant; the ChemLab supervisor, Dr. David Hickey; or to the ChemLab Prof., James Farrar, as appropriate. ChemLab is an essential part of this course and you must complete the required laboratory work to receive a grade for this course.

7. Examinations and Grading

Three 'Hour Exams' and a final examination will be given. The 'Hour Exams' will be given from 8:00-9:30 a.m. in Hubbell Auditorium on the following dates.

§§§ Exam 1: Thursday, October 2 §§§

§§§ Exam 2: Tuesday, October 28 §§§

§§§ Exam 3: Tuesday, December 2 §§§

The Final Exam has been scheduled by the Registrar and will be on Thursday, December 18 at 7:15 p.m. You must take the final exam to receive a grade in this course.

There will be no make-up examinations in this course. If you have a valid, college approved reason for your absence, a missed examination will not be counted (your grade will be prorated). If you have too many absences, you will be given an incomplete or F as the situation may warrant.

Each 'Hour Exam' and the Final Exam will cover all material which has been presented in regular lectures, workshops, lab lectures, and in the laboratory. As a consequence, you should constantly review older material as the semester progresses. The same questions may be asked on more than one 'Hour Exam' so you should make sure you understand all of the questions on previous 'Hour Exams'. You will need to have an electronic calculator for this course.

The procedure for returning graded exams to you is as follows: Graded exams will normally be returned in your next scheduled Workshop. You may also make arrangements with your Workshop Leader to get an exam from his/her office during office hours. In either case you must inspect your examination for grading errors in the presence of a Workshop Leader and request regrading immediately. Examinations to be regraded should be given to your Workshop Leader, NOT Professor Krauss. The numbers of the problems to be regraded should be indicated clearly on the front of your examination. Once you have left your Workshop you MAY NOT submit your examination for regrading. An answer key for each exam will be placed on the CHEM131-MWF www page.

8. Final Grade:

Grades in the course will be based on a total of 1000 points as follows:

3 'Hour Exams' (165 pts each) 495

Workshop 160

Laboratory 180

Final Exam 330

You will note that this list adds up to 1165 points! Students often worry that poor performance on one exam will adversely affect an otherwise consistent performance. To allay this fear, you will be able to drop either your worst 'Hour Exam' grade, of 50% of the Final Exam. Since you can drop one 'Hour Exam', there will be no make-up examinations.

Note that the laboratory counts for 18% of your grade. If you are prepared for the laboratory, careful with the experiments, and hand in clear and accurate laboratory reports, this is an easy way to improve your score. However, you will also want to allocate your time to the various segments of the course in proportion to their weight in grading.

The final exam will cover all lecture and laboratory topics from the whole semester.

Your letter grade depends on the number of total points you obtain in the semester. A distribution curve is not used in Chemistry 131-MWF and it is therefore possible for every student to receive an A in this course. Grades will be given based on the following scale:

Students falling immediately below the cutoffs will be reviewed. Since the course is graded on an absolute point total and not on a distribution curve, you are not competing with other students for a grade. You are encouraged to study with another student or group of students. In many cases group study makes understanding of problem solving techniques and concepts much easier then attempting to master everything individually.

10. Prof. Krauss' Office Hours

I will post the time and location for my Office Hours in the first week of the semester. You are encouraged to come and see me about any questions or problems associated with this course. Many simple questions can conveniently be addressed via e-mail. Contact me at

CHEM131MWF"at"CHEM.ROCHESTER.EDU.

Please use a mail.rochester.edu email address to contact me as the spam filter will trash any other address. Thanks!