Chemistry 15 : Experimental Chemistry
Dr. Carey S. Reed
Office: C-127 Smith
Telephone:  ext. 5752
email: csr4@psu.edu

General Information

Text required:

Laboratory Notebook with permanently numbered pages and duplicate carbon pages.
Your Chem 13 text.

Safety:

Goggles will be worn at all times.  Gloves will be worn any time chemicals are being handled or glassware is washed.

Calculator required:  Electronic calculator capable of handling logarithms and exponential notation.

Prerequisites:  Chem 13 (or concurrent) and Chem 14.

Attendance:

University regulations state that a student should attend every scheduled class (Policies and Rules for Students section 42-27).  Frequent absence from class in unacceptable.  If you miss a class it is your responsibility to determine what material, announcements, handouts, graded papers, etc., were missed due to your absence.  You should arrange for one of your classmates to hold returned papers in the event you are absent when papers are returned.  I do not assume responsibility for holding papers if you are not there to pick them up, or have not made arrangements for someone else to pick them up.  I will, of course, try to hold unclaimed papers for a few days.

Makeups:

At my convenience before the end of the semester.  If you cannot makeup the lab before the semester ends you will be given a 0 for the lab.

Lab Report due dates:  Usually one week from the completion of the experimental work.

Lab with partners:

Separate reports will be written.  If the lab data was collected only by one of the partners then the partner without the data will obtain a Xerox copy of the original data and  include it with their report.  Partners lab reports have to be turned in together.

Lab Data:

All original data measurements must be promptly and properly recorded directly into the lab notebook.  Data recorded elsewhere is subject to confiscation.

Lab Reports:  The following is part of the laboratory report:

• Cover page – Expt #, Chem 15 sec. #, Name, lab partner name, due date
• Original data pages/graphs  (only handwritten portion)
• Data Tables/Graphs – properly labled, one graph per page (excel)
• Sample calculations
• Error estimates
• Sources of error
• Conclusions and results
• Safety Hazards of the Experiment

Quizzes:

Written quizzes may be given at the beginning of any laboratory period.  They will not be announced.  They will cover the laboratory and reading material assigned or announced for that day.  The number of quizzes is unspecified.

Grading:

         Material         Points
                    Expt. #1 + 2             20
                    Expt. #3                   20
                    Expt. #4                   20
                    Expt. #5                   20
                    Expt. #6                   20
                    Expt. #7                   20
                    Expt. #8                   20
                    Attendance             -5 each class missed
                                                      -3 for signif. tardiness
                    Lab Quizzes            + 1 per question
                    Locker Condition  10

         Max. Points            150 + lab quiz grades
 

Computing the Course Grade:

         Percentage  Grade
                        95 or more     A
                        92 or more     A-
                        88 or more     B+
                        85 or more     B
                        82 or more     B-
                        75 or more     C+
                        70 or more     C
                        60 or more     D
                        Less than 60  F
 

Dropping the Course:

Contact the Office of the Registrar in room 109 Smith.  No course can be dropped after the end of the drop period.  This date, and your final exam time and date, as well as other useful information is always appended to the copy of course offerings for any semester.  This usually occurs just before or just after the THIRD scheduled examination in this course (This semester, the third exam is scheduled before the last day to drop).  Caution! in dropping courses is advised because of a maximum (during your entire PSU tenure) allowed number of credits you may drop between the end of the "free" drop period until the end of the allowed drop period (when you have to pay to drop).

Campus Statement on Academic Integrity, adopted by the Altoona Campus Faculty Senate on March 19, 1985.

 "Academic integrity is the pursuit of scholarly activity free from fraud and deception and is an educational objective of this institution.  Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to cheating, plagiarism, fabrication of information or citation, facilitating acts of academic dishonesty by others, unauthorized prior possession of examinations, submitting work of another person or work previously used without informing the instructor, or tampering with the academic work of other students." (Policies and Rules for Students. Section 49-20)

Consequences of Academic Dishonesty:

 "The penalty for academic dishonesty in less serious cases consists of a failing grade for the work or test where this misconduct occurred.  This decision is made by the instructor.  For more serious cases of dishonesty, the penalties are more severe, (including automatic failure for the course, probation, suspension or expulsion from the University), and formal due process procedures are available for the student and faculty involved.  Section 49-20 of the Policies and Rules for Students provides the details on these procedures."

Scheduled Classes Not Met:

 In Extraordinary circumstances (which have occurred from time to time in the past, and which will occur from time to time in the future), when classes are missed due to reasons  other than instructor illness, power failures, weather, and the like, in which the missed classes  are not made up), missed classes will be rescheduled if possible, in conjunction with the Office of the Registrar.  Any such rearranging and rescheduling would be announced in class so that appropriate arrangement could be made by all.
 

SCHEDULE FOR SPRING 2006
 

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Links of interest

• MSDS - Material Safety Data Sheets - Fisher Scientific.
• ChemFinder.com - Chemical and Physical properties, MSDS, and other information.