TCU - Kayla Green Research Laboratories

TCU Chemistry Boot Camp

2024 TCU Chemistry Boot Camp will begin on June 24

[If you request to be added to the class roster after 6/17/2024, you will be processed starting June 24. Don't worry, you won't get behind. We appreciate your patience while our support team has a much deserved break.]

Our goal is to help you build the fundamental knowledge and the skill sets necessary to successfully transition into General Chemistry at TCU. The course is free and no credit (grade) is associated with it at this time.

TCU Chemistry Boot Camp will focus on:

Exposure to the fundamentals of General Chemistry
Working practice problems
Getting familiar with the technology
Growing your confidence in your abilities

Delivery

Boot Camp will be delivered using the D2L online learning platform provided by TCU. All Zoom links, material, discussion boards, etc. will be linked through the D2L site.
Content and schedules will be posted on D2L weekly – for you to work through at your own pace.
There will be “live” sessions with faculty and TAs throughout the week (schedule TBD). These will be recorded and posted if you can’t make one or more. The goal is to make this accessible and easy for you to work within your schedule.
There will be a discussion board for students to ask questions and interact with one another.
The Boot Camp course shell will appear under the Special Topics tab in D2L when your enrollment in the platform is complete
You’ll be able to catch up on the course material at your own pace if you enroll late or miss material.

Schedule

The boot camp will begin on June 24 and will last for six weeks.
We anticipate that you will spend ~1-2 h each day with the course. However, extra practice is encouraged! We hope to provide you with many opportunities to solidify your skillsets, which we think is integral to being successful in general chemistry.
Each day (Monday – Friday) will have a video posted for you to watch. The majority of these videos have been prepared by TCU Boot Camp Faculty and are good representations of the lecture material you will see in person with us for General Chemistry in Fall 2024.
Each day (Monday – Friday), you will have an assignment and/or examples to help you practice implementing the new knowledge.
Each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday you can work with your TCU Boot Camp Faculty and/or TAs. We will have problems that we work through with you. Times and Zoom links (TBA) will be posted on the D2L Boot Camp Calendar for these meetings.These sessions and the discussion board are intented for you to have the opportunity to ask questions and clarify your understanding of the material.
Course discussion threads will be live for each of the six modules. Faculty and TAs will engage in these threads and encourage student involvement.
The schedule is designed for flexibility. It is important to cover all of the material, but if you miss a day or more, you can catch up in your own time. We will have all faculty sessions recorded and posted on D2L.

How do I sign up? If you request to be added to the class roster after 6/17/2024, you will be processed starting June 24. Don't worry, you won't get behind. We appreciate your patience while our support team has a much deserved break.From your TCU email account, e-mail l.p.kimbrell@tcu.edu with your TCU I.D. stating you'd like to join. We will then get you registered for the course on D2L. It will go “live” on TO BE ANNOUNCED at the latest. Details for logging onto D2L can be found here.

What should I do to prepare? We will ease you into the course the first week but it would be helpful to have Zoom downloaded on your computer and make sure you can login to D2L before the course starts. We will be sending addition information to those registered regarding CHEM101, an app that we will use for practice problems. The app will be provided to you at no cost.

Make sure you login to D2L on June 24 to get started!

Reminder. The course is free and no credit is associated with it at this time.

If you would like to register, send an email from your TCU email account with your TCU ID number to l.p.kimbrell@tcu.edu. *Please note that all emails must come from your TCU email account to be considered valid for registration for the boot camp.

Courses Taught

Please refer to TCU Online for specific class related links and documents.

Courses Name	Courses Number	Semester(s)
General Chemistry I	CHEM 10113	Fall 2013, 2014, 2017, 2020
General Chemistry Laboratory	CHEM 10125	Spring 2013, 2014, 2017
Special Topics in Bioinorganic	CHEM 50230	Spring 2012, 2019, 2021, 2024
Special Topics in Organometallics	CHEM 50230	Fall 2015
Advanced Inorganic Chemistry	CHEM 50163	Fall 2010-12, 2022-2023
Chemical Instrumentation	CHEM 40172	Spring 2011-12, 2015-16, 2021
Advanced Inorganic Lab	CHEM 50162	Fall 2016, 2018-19
Senior Seminar	CHEM 40091	Fall 2016

Safety Training

Contact Rich Adickes (R.ADICKES@tcu.edu) to get your safety training account setup.

TCU High-Performace Computing Center

Copy/Paste this link into your browser (https://tcu.box.com/s/j3vpc39go586s3o8t92tq8nh5i4er8ou) to learn about using the cluster. (The link is restricted to individuals with TCU credentials: students, staff, and faculty)

NMR

NMR Instructions here

Chemistry Links

Outreach

ACS Student Affiliate Chapter

Sponsors: Drs. Kayla N. Green, Heidi Condrad, and Julie Fry

‘Outstanding’ Chapter 2011-present.

TCU Chemistry Club has earned recognition by the ACS for our work in the DFW community with ‘Outstanding’ and the ChemLuminary Award in recent years. We have a small, but very active group of members and focus on bringing chemistry to the DFW community and preparing chemistry/biochemistry majors for the next step toward their careers. If you would like for us to work with your school, please contact Dr. Green via e-mail: kayla.green@tcu.edu.

We have been filming our volunteers along with volunteer patients from Cook Children’s Hospital performing chemistry experiments and demos as part of Sick Science Stuff Show, shown on the Cook Children’s television network: GetWellNetwork ®. Cook Children’s Hospital contains 429 beds and sees well over 100,000 patients per year, each of whom have the potential to be served by our project. GetWellNetwork® is a computer, TV and gaming system available in each patient room. The system will help appropriate individuals (family) learn more about a child’s diagnosis and treatment, help with medical center questions, and provide entertainment. Our show is filmed and produced with Cook Children’s. With several full-length episodes, commercials, intros, and promos filmed to date, Sick Science Show is already being currently run on the Cook Children’s television network. The hospital contains an in-house network of various television channels, most of which are produced by Director Shawn Griffith of the Child Life Zone within the Cook’s Hospital system. If you would like to see examples of our videos, please contact: kayla.green@tcu.edu.

Each week TCU student volunteers visited Crowley Middle School (Fall 2013) and Burton Hill Elementary School (since Spring 2014). We have developed 20 kits (and growing) that each fit in a portable plastic container to take to each school. Each kit centers around a fundamental chemistry topic, ex: Chemical Changes (Rainbow pH tube, oscillating clock reaction and baggie reactions), Energy Changes (endo/exothermic reactions, flaming vapor ramp demo, endothermic solids demo), color changes as an indication of a chemical Change (Flame tests, luminol luminescence, "Kool-Aid to water to milk"). These generally consist of adapted procedures from ‘Chemistry Demonstrations’, J. Chem. Educ., ACS Education Links, Steve Spangler Science, Flinn Scientific and others from whom we regularly purchase supplies. We use these in addition to the ACS ambassador kits to get the kids excited and knowledgeable about fundamental chemistry. TCU volunteers have also participated in a ‘career’ day and helped discuss potential careers in science with these young students using the knowledge gained through Career Seminars organized by ACS Student Affiliate Chapter and ACS Career Opportunities at ACS meetings.

Chemistry Club is very active on the TCU campus providing activities for TCU students, families, and fans throughout the year.

Join us for Chemistry Connections 2018 at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History! Volunteer support for the 2018 event is provided by Texas Christian University, Southern Methodist University, Texas Wesleyan University, Texas Woman’s University, University of Dallas, University of North Texas, University of North Texas-Health Science Center, University of Texas at Arlington, Eastfield College, Tarrant County College, Birdville High School, Fort Worth Country Day, Lamar High School, Southwest Christian School, Trinity Valley School, STEAM Middle School, Fort Worth Police Department. This is an annual event (since 2011) in which 11+ DFW Universities and 6 DFW High Schools have brought chemistry to over 20,000 visitors to date. We work closely with Ann Herndon and Cathy Barthelmy at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (FWMSH) to plan this event scheduled during National Chemistry Week. As TCU is just ten minutes from the museum, we typically have undergraduate and graduate students there Tuesday-Saturday each day 10 am. -2 p.m. During the week, TCU volunteers provided hands on activities such as using miniature wooden roller coasters to demonstrate potential and kinetic energy, the baggie experiment (chemical to thermal energy and exothermic reactions), and numerous smaller sections where the children could experiment with poppers to learn about energy. We’d like to thank our sponsors: ZS Pharma and DFW American Chemical Society for supporting this event!

Career Seminar speakers are invited to visit TCU each semester for the TCU Chemistry Club, Majors and graduate students. As the DFW region is booming with growth in the scientific industry, we have no problem recruiting speakers in the fields of forensics, recycling, medical analysis, science writing, and the chemistry of brewing. The group has also enjoyed seeing chemistry in action at Rahr Brewery (Nick Bigham, ’13 is now the lead chemist at Rahr) and UTSW Imaging Center for example.

I have worked to collect and organize our demonstrations and hands-on activities into 1-page handouts for our volunteers and stored with each kit for easy use. These have been derived from co-workers at TCU, UNT, SMU, TWU and suppliers of demonstrations. I quickly learned that parents and teachers wanted copies. I have collected these (over 45 experiments) and organized them in sections of activities appropriate for: hands-on at home vs. classroom and demonstrations for trained science teachers. Although this is an ever evolving document, I quarterly print out and have copies bound for local teachers and home-school parents/teachers that I have the pleasure of interacting with through my leadership with TCU Chemistry Club. If you are interested in obtaining a copy, please e-mail Dr. Green: kayla.green@tcu.edu