A Capstone Course in Nanotechnology for Chemistry Majors

Nanotechnology provides a relevant and exciting theme on which to base a capstone, laboratory experience for advanced, undergraduate chemistry majors. This paper describes a course in which the theme of nanotechnology pulls together many of the important topics and skills covered in core chemistry courses. Moreover, a capstone course with a nanotechnology focus could provide a similar experience for science majors in fields other than chemistry, and examples of nonchemistry topics are discussed. The course described here consists of four main laboratory activities, all adapted from laboratory experiments published in the Journal of Chemical Education, and a final, independent project that is an extension of one of the four assigned projects. In addition, this writing-intensive course emphasizes the communication of results using all of the formats that scientists use. A key factor in making this a useful experience is the careful consideration of procedural details to make available to students. Throughout the course, only minimal, yet essential, information was provided, thus putting the student at the center of the learning process.