All resources in OER Liberal Arts Group

Organic Synthesis

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Chapter 1: Pericyclic Reactions Chapter 2: Transition Metal Catalyzed Carbon-Carbon Bond Forming Reactions Chapter 3: Neighboring Group Participation, Rearrangements, and Fragmentations Chapter 4: Radical Reactions Chapter 5: Carbene Reactions

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Kevin Shea

"Women and Political Systems Worldwide" by Carrie N. Baker and Marcela Rodrigues-Sherley

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Chapter from the Women Worldwide: Transnational Feminist Perspectives Collected works Book Description: During the past few years, we’ve witnessed how interconnected our world is. These instances of global interconnection—both positive and negative—have differing impacts on people based on gender while also creating and reinforcing the ways people experience gender. We see that experiences of gender are always shaped by nationality, race/ethnicity, sexual identity, social class, ability, age, and religion. This social construction of gender, its shaping of the world, and its effects on individuals and groups of people are at the core of this textbook.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Carrie N. Baker, Marcela Rodrigues-Sherley

Virtual Buffer Lab

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This is a virtual adaptation of a buffer capacity lab experiment using the chemcollective digital workspace. Students learn to make buffers in different ways and then test the capacity of their buffers to understand what makes an optimal buffer.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Mohini Kulp

Statistical Inference via Data Science: A ModernDive into R and the Tidyverse

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Help! I’m completely new to coding and I need to learn R and RStudio! What do I do? If you’re asking yourself this question, then you’ve come to the right place! Start with the “Introduction for students” section. Are you an instructor hoping to use this book in your courses? We recommend reading the “Introduction for students” section first. Then, read the “Introduction for instructors” section for more information on how to teach with this book. Are you looking to connect with and contribute to ModernDive? Then, read the “Connect and contribute” section for information on how. Are you curious about the publishing of this book? Then, read the “About this book” section for more information on the open-source technology, in particular R Markdown and the bookdown package. This record and link is to the website for the book: Statistical Inference via Data Science: A ModernDive into R and the Tidyverse!

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Albert Y. Kim, Chester Ismay

Scar Literature

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This video lecture tells the story of “Scar Literature,” a gut-wrenching literary movement that bravely confronted the wounds of China’s Cultural Revolution. Dozens of evocative images illustrate the movement’s significance, its key stories and their historical contexts. The video invites viewers to consider Scar Literature’s legacy for healing trauma in China and beyond.

Material Type: Lecture

Author: Sabina Knight

Case Studies in Systems Chemistry

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This publication was produced as a teaching tool for college chemistry.The book is a text for a computer-based unit on the chemistry of acid-base titrations, and is designed for use with FORTRAN or BASIC.computer systems, and with a programmable electronic calculator, in a variety of educational settings. The text attempts to present computer programs that are relatively free of reliance on specialized large computer systems programs. The case-study approach presented is highly research and laboratory oriented. Similar subject matter is conventionally taught in most introductory college chemistry courses, but this text material attempts greater depth of instruction through utilization of the computational resources of a computer.

Material Type: Case Study

Author: George Fleck

CurvedLand: An Applet to Simulate Curved Space

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CurvedLand is an applet for showing what the world would look like with different geometry. It is named CurvedLand in tribute to the science fiction novel, Flatland, by Edwin Abbott, which describes the adventures of a two-dimensional being who is visited by a stranger from the third dimension. One of the central ideas of Einstein's theory of relativity is that space and time curve in response to the matter and energy within them. A curved space is one that doesn't obey the usual laws of Euclidean geometry: the angles of a triangle don't generally add up to 180 degrees, the circumference of a circle isn't pi times the diameter, parallel lines can either converge towards each other or move apart, and so on. Since the geometry we observe is very close to Euclidean, however, it is hard for most of us to picture what this difference would mean physically. If you draw a circle and a diameter, how could the ratio be anything other than pi? To answer this question, imagine that as you move around in space the shapes of objects appear to distort. This is what happens in curved space. If you draw a circle around yourself and then start walking around it to pace out the circumference, it will look to you like you are walking along a constantly changing ellipse. CurvedLand illustrates this distortion as it would appear in a two-dimensional curved space. The structure is similar to a mapping program. You can place objects of different shapes in different places in the world and then move around the space to see what they look like from different perspectives.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Gary Felder, Stephanie Erickson

Calculus in Context

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We believe that calculus can be for students what it was for Euler and the Bernoullis: a language and a tool for exploring the whole fabric of science. We also believe that much of the mathematical depth and vitality of calculus lies in connections to other sciences. The mathematical questions that arise are compelling in part because the answers matter to other disciplines. We began our work with a "clean slate," not by asking what parts of the traditional course to include or discard. Our starting points are thus our summary of what calculus is really about. Our curricular goals are what we aim to convey about the subject in the course. Our functional goals describe the attitudes and behaviors we hope our students will adopt in using calculus to approach scientific and mathematical questions.

Material Type: Full Course, Student Guide, Textbook

Authors: David Cox, Donal O'Shea, Harriet Pollatsek, James Callahan, Kenneth Hoffman, Lester Senechal, The Five College Calculus Project

Smith College Chinese Character Literacy Project

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The Smith College Chinese Character Literacy Project site is part of the Chinese Character Literacy Project which has been funded by the Five College Blended Learning for Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences and supported by the Five College Deans and a multi-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This site serves as an online character learning platform which showcases the character videos made by students and instructors in the beginning Chinese courses (CHI110 and CHI111) at Smith College (and with the hope to collaborate with other institutions in the future).

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Sujane Wu

An Online Lab Manual for Neurophysiology

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This lab manual is a series of illustrated, printed lab handouts for my neurophysiology course. It provides videos of procedures, color diagrams, large photographs, and links to supplementary layers of information that go far beyond what was feasible in a printed manual. Each lab module is self-contained and they are intended for use without restriction by colleagues at other colleges. I hope it will encourage others to take similar steps in their own courses, and I hope also that sharing these self-published materials will contribute to an increasing trend of sharing online resources within the neuroscience teaching community.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Richard F. Olivo

Public Feminisms: From Academy to Community

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The field of feminist studies grew from the U.S. women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s and has continued to be deeply connected to ongoing movements for social justice. As educational institutions are increasingly seeing public scholarship and community engagement as relevant and fruitful complements to traditional academic work, feminist scholars have much to offer in demonstrating different ways to inform and interact with various communities.

Material Type: Reading

Authors: Arizona State University, Aviva Dove-Viebahn, Carrie N. Baker