Course schedule

The course consists of three required components:

• lecture (Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays): 10:30am-12:30pm
• discussion (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays) 9:00-10:00am, and
• lab (Tuesdays and Thursdays): 1:30pm-4:30pm.

You are required to attend all of the course meetings for all of the components (lecture, lab, and discussion). Participation in lecture and discussion are expected and will contribute towards your grade in the course. If you have not yet registered for all three components of the course, please do so right away. Students will be assigned to individual discussion and lab sections by last name - section assignments will be posted on Blackboard in the "Gradebook".

Discussions and Groupwork

Each week students will participate in three discussion sections: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings 9am-10am. During each discussion, students will work in groups on worksheets, select book problems, interactive exercises, and class-wide discussions. The teaching assistant will be a facilitator and mentor in discussion, working with groups to help them on their work.

Students are expected to arrive on time (read: a couple of mintues early) and to actively participate in all of the discussion sections (cameras on). A portion of your course grade (10%) will be awarded based on your (on-time) attendance and engagement (in group work and classwide exercises) in discussion.

Participation in lectures

In addition to traditional lecture presentations, lecture time will also be comprised of interactive individual and group-based problem solving. Students will use Turning Technologies Clickers to answer questions in class. A portion of your course grade (10%) will be awarded based on your participation using the clickers.

Tests and Final Exam

There will be five tests and a cumulative final exam:

• Tests: June 1 (Tuesday), June 7, June 14, June 21, and June 28 - all Mondays (except 6/1), starting at 10:30am)
• Final Exam: Thursday, July 1, 9:30am-12:30pm.

The tests will be around 75 minutees long, and will cover (roughly) the material from the previous week (textbook, lecture, discussion, lab). Exact details of chapters and topics will be disseminated at the end of the previous week.

There will be a total of 5 tests, but each student's lowest test grade will be dropped automatically, which means that the four best tests for each student will count. The final exam will be cumulative and cover all of the material in the course.

Due to the small size of the course, no makeup tests will be offered for missed tests. Emergency situations, with proper documentation (directly to the course professor), and religious observances will be accepted according to the absence policy detailed below. A missed test for any other reason will be given a grade of 0. A missed final exam will result in an incomplete grade (I), so please make end-of-semester travel plans accordingly.

Online in Summer 2021

CH101 is being offered remotely (under LfA) in Summer 2021 at Boston University. Nevertheless, we will be meeting synchronously (as scheduled in Boston, Eastern time) for all components of the course. Students are therefore expected to attend on-time and participate actively in all of the scheduled sections.

That being said, we do understand that internet/connectivity and other issues may cause interferences. The absence policy has been updated to reflect this reality and make sure that small inconveniences do not result in grade penalties.

Overall course grade

The course grade will be determined as follows:

Absence Policy

Attendance at all lectures, discussions, pre-lab lectures, and labs is mandatory. Students must attend their assigned discussion section, and are expected to arrive on-time. Lecture, pre-lab lecture, and discussion participation and engagement will count for 20% of your course grade.

Your participation grade will be based on your engagement, prompt attendance, and contributions in lecture and discussion. It is completely understandable that some students may miss a lecture, lab lecture, or discussion due to unforeseen circumstances. Moreover, given the circumstances in Summer 2021 (and the potential for illnesses or internet connectivity issues), we will make the following adjustments for all students in CH101:

• Any student with more than 85% engagement and participation in lecture will receive full credit for lecture participation.
• Any student with more than 85% engagement and participation in discussion will receive full credit for discussion.
• The lowest virtual lab will be dropped
• The lowest (of 5) tests will be dropped

In this way, all students will be able to succeed in the course. Missed classes due to religious observances will never affect your score adversely.

Academic Conduct

All students at Boston University are expected to maintain high standards of academic honesty and integrity. The Chemistry Department treats cheating with zero tolerance. Here, cheating refers to any violation of the student academic conduct code. There are no small infractions. All instances of misconduct will be reported to the Dean's office. It is the responsibility of every student to be aware of the Academic Conduct Code's contents and to abide by its provisions, as detailed here.

Appropriate use of online resources

Students at Boston University are required to abide by all of regulations regarding academic integrity and conduct, including the proper use of technology and digital resources. Course materials are provided by faculty for your personal use in the course only. Any other use of these materials including, but not limited to, posting of materials online in forums or websites, is a copyright violation and a violation of the academic conduct code. Additionally, materials submitted for course credit (papers, exams, etc.) are similarly not permitted to be used or posted.

Policy on Religious Observances

Absences for documented religious observances will be excused according to the specifications of the University Policy on Religious Observance. Please make sure to communicate about religious observances as far in advance as possible (and no later than one week before the observance, per university policy) so that accommodations can be made.

Copyright laws and Protection

The syllabus, course descriptions, lab manual, and all handouts created for this course, and all class lectures, are copyrighted by the course instructors. The materials and lectures may not be reproduced in any form or otherwise copied, displayed or distributed, nor should works derived from them be reproduced, copied, displayed or distributed without the written permission of the instructors. Infringement of the copyright in these materials, including any sale or commercial use of notes, summaries, outlines or other reproductions of lectures, constitutes a violation of the copyright laws and is prohibited. Please note in particular that distributing, receiving, selling, or buying class notes, lecture notes or summaries, lab reports or related materials, or similar materials both violates copyright and interferes with the academic mission of the College, and is therefore prohibited in this class and will be considered a violation of the student code of responsibility that is subject to academic sanctions.

Office of Disability and Access Services

The Office of Disability and Access Services (25 Buick street, Suite 300) is responsible for assisting students with disabilities. If you have a disability, you are strongly encouraged to register with this office. Lecture hall and discussion rooms are accessible and ADA compliant.

Learning and testing accommodations: Boston University complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. If you are a student who needs academic accommodations because of a documented disability, you must present your letter of accommodation from the Office of Disability and Access Services directly to your professor as soon as possible. If you have questions about documenting a disability or requesting academic accommodations, contact the Office of Disability and Access Services. Letters of accommodations should be presented as soon as possible to ensure that student needs are addressed from the start of the course. Instructors are not able to provide accommodations without documentation from Boston University's Office of Disability and Access Services.

Lecture Preparation

You will get the most out of lecture if you have worked through the textbook beforehand. This includes reading the text, working through the worked-examples in the text, and working through the exercises in the chapter. This will give you a good jumping-off-point for the lectures. Detailed guidance about what sections to prepare for each lecture will be posted in the schedule.

Lecture Follow-up

After each lecture, you should work through your lecture notes to be sure you understand everything that was covered. The next step is to do a lot of problems.

Working Problems

Chemistry is a quantitative science and understanding of its concepts is cemented by solving problems. The text offers many problems for you to attempt. For success you should do as many of these as you can. If you run into trouble with the problems (which is completely normal), you should come to office hours to get support.

Each chapter will have a minimum number of assigned problems. Completing these is a top priority in order to make sure that you've learned the material. A good portion of the test questions will come directly from the assigned homework problems.

A note about using the optional solutions manual: Having access to the full solutions for problems can be helpful if used properly, but if used improperly these solutions can have the opposite of the desired effect. It is important to remember that the solutions should be used as a last resort only. If you struggle to work through a problem, we recommend that you do not go directly to the solutions. Instead, we suggest that you do the following: First, re-read the corresponding section of the book; then look at similar worked examples in the text; collaborate with your study group and attend an office hours; and, finally, take a look at the solutions manual, if necessary. If you find that you are regularly needing to read solutions to problems in the solutions please come speak with an instructor during an office hour.

Discussion sections

There are three discussion sessions per week - these problem solving sessions will give you a chance to work in groups to solve problems, some of which are exam-caliber. These sessions are also a particularly good time to work through the problems that you haven't been able to solve.

Office hours (i.e., free tutoring and good conversations)

You are strongly encouraged to attend office hours - any of them, all of them. They are a great opportunity to work through problems in groups, get support from course instructors, and ask questions. Note: you do not need to have a question or an appointment to attend these open hours. Rather, come frequently and maximize your effort by getting support. The schedule of the office hours is posted here.

An important note about getting answers to your questions: e-mail is not a replacement for office hours. While instructors will certainly respond to personal, private, and urgent matters by email, they will not be regularly answering content-related questions by email. To get answers from instructors, please attend any of the office hours. Instructors will not generally answer emails over the weekends.

Lecture topics

In this course we will cover chapters 1-14 of McQuarrie 4e:

• Chapter 1: Chemistry and the Scientific Method
• Chapter 2: Atoms and Molecules
• Chapter 3: The Periodic Table and chemical periodicity
• Chapter 4: Early Quantum Theory
• Chapter 5: Quantum Theory and Atomic Structure
• Chapter 6: Ionic Bonds and Compounds
• Chapter 7: Lewis Formulas
• Chapter 8: Prediction of Molecular Geometries
• Chapter 9: Covalent Bonding and Molecular ortbital theory
• Chapter 10: Chemical Reactivity
• Chapter 11: Chemical Calculations (moles)
• Chapter 12: Chemical Calculations for Solutions
• Chapter 13: Properties of Gases
• Chapter 14: Thermochemistry

Laboratory

A detailed schedule of the laboratory portion of the course is provided in the lab syllabus.

The laboratory portion of this course will let you see first-hand chemical principles and processes in action. It will also give you experience with some of the methods scientists use to do chemical research. Your laboratory will consist experiments that have been scheduled as near as possible with the topcis in lecture.

BU Hub Learning Outcomes

Scientific Inquiry I. Students will identify and apply major concepts used in the natural sciences to explain and quantify the workings of the physical world. These concepts include the following: matter is composed of atoms; elements form families; bonds form between atoms by sharing electron pairs; shape is of the utmost importance; molecules interact with one another; energy is conserved; energy and matter tend to disperse; there are barriers to reaction; and light and matter can exchange energy. Students will learn about the process by which scientific theories are developed, refined, refuted, and confirmed.

Quantitative Reasoning I. Students will demonstrate their understanding of core conceptual and theoretical tools used in quantitative reasoning, particularly mathematics, as a tool for the exposition and manipulation of chemical concepts and for formulating a connection between microscopic models of matter and its macroscopic properties. Students will interpret quantitative models of how energy and light interact with atoms or molecules and understand a variety of methods of communicating these, such as graphs, including spectra, tables, formulae, and chemical symbols. Students will communicate quantitative information about chemical and physical objects and their properties using chemical symbols, visually with sketches, numerically with estimated or computed values, and verbally using appropriate chemical nomenclature. Students will recognize and articulate the capacity and limitations of quantitative methods such as dimensional analysis and the risks of using it improperly.