Welcome to Essentials of General Chemistry Laboratory. This is a one-semester course designed specifically for non-science majors and pre-nursing students. Chemistry is a challenging and often abstract science, but as you progress through this course we hope you will discover that chemistry is also exciting and that many of the key concepts in chemistry are both important and relevant to life on earth. Throughout this semester we will provide you with the basic skills and knowledge to think and feel like a chemist. 

We are excited that you have enrolled in this course and we will do our best to encourage you to grow as a scientist!

HOW TO SUCCEED IN THE COURSE

Every experiment in this lab is presented to you as a puzzle that you will need to solve. To help you succeed we have divided every experiment into multiple sections – that each serve a specific purpose in the lab.

The pre-lab assignments: These assignments are meant as an introduction to important concepts related to the experiment and are due before the lab starts.
The core lab assignments: This is where we dig into the experiment itself. These assignments contain the puzzle that needs to be solved as well as instructions about the data collection, organization, and analysis. This is the heart of each experiment and these assignments will be the most difficult to complete.
The post-lab assignments: These assignments expand the content of the experiment and comprise problem-solving, further discussions about the lab data and applications to real-world examples related to human health.
Within these assignments are questions that you must respond to in order to earn the points for each experiment. In most cases the questions must be answered with an absolutely correct response, but sometimes they will be open-ended discussions and these may have multiple correct responses.