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JCE LrnComOnline
Learning Communities Online

Online instructional modules that span the chemistry curriculum.

JCE LrnCom Online
March 2007
* Icon Image Contrail

Franklin Chen

The condensation trail, or contrail, that trails behind a jet plane is an everyday observable phenomenon. These manmade cirrus clouds can persist for hours, or even days and can spread over thousands of square kilometers. This is a concern because clouds are major variables that control Earth's atmospheric temperature and climate. Understanding the impact of contrails on Earth's climate is an active area of research. Further, contrail formation can be examined in terms of the operative thermodynamic phenomena. The process of contrail formation involves combustion, cooling, and ice formation, all common topics in the undergraduate physical chemistry curriculum. This project offers a good, comprehensive exercise for physical chemistry students.

Inaugural Article
February 2005
* Icon Image Cl2O4 in the Stratosphere

David M. Whisnant, Lisa Lever, and Jerry Howe

The depletion of ozone in the stratosphere is caused chiefly by ozone reacting with chlorine and bromine from industrially manufactured gases. Several small chlorine oxide molecules are involved in the catalytic cycles that lead to the destruction of ozone. In this comprehensive project, students use computational chemistry to investigate a larger chlorine oxide, Cl2O4.

Mission Statement
The goal of the JCE LrnComOnline feature column is to promote creation, dissemination, and utilization of well-crafted online instructional modules that span the chemistry curriculum. Online modules are multi-week projects that engage students in learning experiences that cut across traditional institutional or disciplinary boundaries. Modules are designed to foster and encourage both intercollegiate and intracollegiate collaborations—both among students and among teachers. Students working on a project constitute a virtual learning community, connected through information technology. The same applies to faculty mentors. Goals of the JCE LrnComOnline feature include enhancing subject-matter learning, improving students’ ability to collaborate effectively, fostering collaborations among faculty, encouraging research into teaching methods, and providing modular resources in an easily accessible format.

The column editors are soliciting exemplary projects in all fields of chemistry and at all levels of the curriculum. Modules must be self-contained, develop collaborative work habits among students, be multidimensional in concept, be open-ended, and support development of higher order thinking skills in students. All submissions are peer reviewed. To be accepted for publication, a submission must give evidence of successful use with students, provide detailed instructions for users, be original and meet definite instructional goals, and satisfy all requirements in the instructions for authors. Example modules that deal with physical-chemistry topics are available at the Chemistry Online Web site. (These example modules were created by PCOL, the Physical Chemistry On-Line project.)

Succinct descriptions of JCE LrnComOnline modules (such as the description for Cl2O4 in the Stratosphere; see below) appear in print in the Information, Textbooks, Media, Resources section of the Journal of Chemical Education. Such descriptions will contain the title, author information, and the URL of the module and explain the module’s scope, target audience, and place within the chemistry curriculum. These summaries are abstracted by Chemical Abstracts, providing publication credit to the author.

Prospective JCE LrnComOnline modules and summaries should be sent to the feature editors (see below).

Collection Curator, Feature Editor
Theresa J. Zielinski
Theresa J. Zielinski
Dept. of Chemistry, Medical Technology, and Physics
Monmouth University
400 Cedar Ave.
West Long Branch, NJ 07764
732-263-5197
732-263-5213
tzielins@monmouth.edu
Assistant Editor
George Long
George Long

Department of Chemistry
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Indiana, PA 15705

grlong@iup.edu
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