Unit information: Practical Work for Chemical Physics in 2020/21

Unit name	Practical Work for Chemical Physics
Unit code	CHEM10006
Credit points	10
Level of study	C/4
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24)
Unit director	Dr. Chris Adams
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	School of Chemistry
Faculty	Faculty of Science

Description including Unit Aims

This unit introduces safe and organised working practices within a laboratory environment and also some basic laboratory practical skills and data handling techniques.

Unit aims: To develop in students the first fundamental practical and data handling skills.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the unit students should be able to:

1. Competently and safely perform key laboratory skills and procedures.
2. Correctly measure, record, manipulate and report laboratory data in an appropriate format.
3. Estimate the errors associated with their measurements.

Teaching Information

• Individual pre-lab work to prepare for the skills used in the forthcoming experiment, including quizzes (pre-lab and safety tests delivered on-line), arithmetical tasks, and online experimental simulations.
• 12 practical experiments in the teaching laboratories, supported by a postgraduate demonstrator responsible for that experiment.
• Post-lab work will involve data analysis, including assessment of errors, and be submitted by uploading work to the VLE.

Assessment Information

The unit will be continuously assessed throughout; for every experiment postgraduate laboratory demonstrators will assess the student’s practical performance in the laboratory (20%, ILO 1), and mark the post-lab work uploaded by the students (80%, ILOs 2&3). Before leaving the lab, students will also be asked to provide self-assessment on their performance, including identifying any learning outcomes or opportunities for improvement that the experiment has surfaced. The demonstrator will then reply to this in a dialogic manner when marking both components.

Assessment of the first eight of the experiments will be purely formative, and only the final four experiments will count towards the final mark. Moreover, students will be allowed to discard one of these marks, so that ultimately it is the best three from four, each making an equal contribution.

Reading and References

All the necessary teaching materials are delivered online using the VLE.