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The Chemical Educator
ISSN: 1430-4171 (electronic version)
Abstract Volume 22
(2017) pp 205-207
An Unconventional Approach to Procedural Development in Analytical Chemistry using Food Coloring and Absorption Spectroscopy
Albert D. Dukes III*, and David E. Gardner
Department of Physical Sciences, Lander University, Greenwood, SC 29649, adukes@lander.edu
Received October 18, 2017. Accepted December 5, 2017.
Published: 29 Devember 2017
Abstract. We
present a laboratory activity designed to teach students procedural
development, using commonly encountered substances (i.e. cake) as the unknown
sample. Students were challenged to determine the concentration of dye in the
cake and were given minimal guidance on how to complete the task. Because of
the perceived benign nature of cake, students reported feeling more at ease in
lab. Observations of student behavior indicated that students more deeply
engaged with this activity compared to more traditional analytical experiments.
Providing a safe, but less structured, environment allowed the students to use
make use of both their inherent creativity and deploy the full arsenal of their
knowledge in order to successfully complete the lab activity.
Key Words: Laboratories and Demonstrations; analytical chemistry; food science; laboratory instruction; hands-on learning; problem solving; calibration; and UV-Vis spectroscopy
(*) Corresponding author. (E-mail: adukes@lander.edu)
Article in PDF format (817 KB) HTML format
Supporting Materials:
The lab handout provided to students and the instructor version are available in supporting material. (158 KB)
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