Aims

The aims of this module is to show students how the fundamental principles of scientific inquiry serve to advance knowledge. Students will learn to evaluate data and report results, and will be introduced to the most fundamental techniques of chemical analysis. Students will be trained in the appropriate handling of scientific data.

Students will be taught basic aspects of safe laboratory practice and the ability to use safety information sources. The module will facilitate students to develop manipulative skills with items of laboratory apparatus that are commonly-encountered in the professional workplace, and provide a “hands-on”, contextualised, tangible perspective on chemical concepts taught elsewhere in the curriculum.

Outline Of Syllabus

This module trains chemical laboratory skills that are important in the chemical industry and in many other sectors of employment. The key skills taught span the sub-disciplines of physical, organic, inorganic and medicinal chemistry. The module provides a tangible, “hands-on” contextualisation of topics encountered elsewhere in Newcastle chemistry degrees. Skills and techniques taught within this module provide a foundation for the more advanced techniques encountered in subsequent Stages.

Students learn how the fundamental principles of scientific inquiry serve to advance knowledge. They learn to evaluate hypotheses and report on observations. Students develop strong familiarity with apparatus including flasks, pipettes, balances and burettes. They become familiar with common analytical techniques (spectroscopy, chromatography, melting point) and their advantages and limitations.

The syllabus includes;
• laboratory and safety awareness
• introduction to techniques of chemical separation, purification and synthesis
• introduction to techniques of chemical analysis (melting point, chromatography,
titration, gravimetric analysis)
• basic interpretation of infrared, UV-Visible and fluorescence spectra
• introduction to calorimetry, electrochemistry and spectroscopy.
• introduction to fundamental principles of calibration and data handling.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Practical Labs provide the students with an opportunity to gain practice in basic chemical manipulations.

Practical sessions are designed to introduce students to key concepts and allow them the opportunity to develop expertise in a range of fundamental scientific skills, including using scientific literature, and collecting, interpreting and presenting scientific information.

There are a couple of workshops which students have already been receiving in the General chemistry lab, on the use of Excel for analysing their data, which they found very beneficial to their performance in the labs.

We wanted to add a couple of workshops to the Organic Chemistry block, outside the lab environment, as a structured space for discussing potential pitfalls and troubleshooting strategies, to help students understand rationale behind the practical techniques. Students will better appreciate why each step of experiment is necessary and how different variables affect the outcome. When students understand the theoretical basis of techniques, they are less likely to make common mistakes, and this will likely improve their confidence and lab performance.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

There are 4 lab courses in NES1400 – General, Organic, Physical and Inorganic chemistry practicals.

Assessment for every lab course in the module consists of 2 parts:

Zero-weighted pass/fail Skills record
Final lab report submitted via CANVAS (which gives a mark for the lab course). Final report is written on only one of all experiments students perform in the lab practical.
The pass/fail Skills component is an assessment used to ensure weekly students’ engagement with each experiment. This assessment can be in a form of a CANVAS quiz taken after the experiment, where students answer the questions on practical techniques used and analyse their experimental data. It can also be just a question or two from a demonstrator in the lab along with the checking of students lab notebooks.

The pass/fail Skills component is a critical quality control measure that ensures that all students attain the necessary lab awareness required. Benefit to the students: the students have an opportunity to practice elements of the summative assessment and receive feedback. The pass/fail tag is there to ensure that all students complete the work.


The final lab report is a summative assessment used to evaluate student’s learning at the end of each lab course. For the lab report students need to present their experimental results and their conclusions from one of the experiment, in a scientific style.