Simulating Instrument Design in an Upper Level Instrumental Analysis Course: Bringing the Laboratory into the Lecture Hall

Lecture-only chemistry courses without a dedicated laboratory component present a significant challenge for instructors to reinforce course content with hands-on learning experiences. This is especially true for lecture courses in which students are unable to directly visualize and operate instrumentation. Herein, we present an in-class activity simulating a hands-on instrumentation experience to serve as a cumulative review of Instrumental Analysis course material, and the activity would also be suitable for Analytical Chemistry or Quantitative Analysis courses. The activity utilizes select clips from an online video tied to a previously published study on the quantification and visualization of Hg-0 vapor emitted from religious objects. Students are guided through a series of questions designed to apply their skills and knowledge gained during the semester to a real-world application of atomic absorption spectroscopy. Students report that this activity increases their understanding of sampling, instrument design, atomic spectroscopy, limitations in atomic spectroscopy applications, and block diagrams. The activity incorporates primary literature in the undergraduate course and provides a real-world application of course content from techniques covered in Instrumental Analysis.