Chem 250 - 9:30a TuTh - Organic Chemistry w/ Biochemistry

5/22 - Course Grades are now available via the OWL Grade Book. Ignore "running totals." You can see how your grade was calculated in the "Comments" section, adjacent to the grade. Click here for an explanation of the math. Be aware that my calculations do not round off, whereas your scores reported on rounded off.
5/22 - I've incorporated the OWL Extra Credit units into your Final Scores. Full participation netted you 2 points toward your final grade (the equivalent of 6.7 points on the Final, 13 points on one Evening Exam, or 40 points on a quiz!).
5/20 - Thanks for a great semester! Answer keys for the Final Exam are available. Stay tuned for scores...
5/14 - Final Exam help sessions are scheduled!
- Thursday 5/15 at 3:00p in LGRT 323
- Monday 5/19 at 3:00p in LGRT 323
5/12 - Updated progress estimates are available via the OWL Grade Book.
- Pre Final Grade Estimate assumes that your score on the Final Exam is the average of your preceding five quizzes and exams (indicated in Comments). If you obtain that score, you will receive the indicated grade.
- Pre Final Best Case Estimate assumes the best possible outcome: that you study hard and earn a score of 100 on the Final Exam.
- Use these numbers as guides only. Your actual grade will of course be dependent on your performance on the Final Exam.
- Note that I have lowered some of the Grade Cutoffs from what I had previously announced. See our Course Grade Calculator for the current values.
5/12 - Quiz 3 Scores are available in the OWL Grade Book.
5/8 - Quiz 3 answer keys are finally available!
4/30 - Download printable sheets of bases and amino acids. Cut them out and play with them at home. How many good "twofer" or better interactions can you make? Hint: page two of this PDF contains the molecules with their lone pairs drawn. Make sure that the lone pair electrons overlap well with the donor hydrogens!
4/29 - Start exploring DNA with our 3D DNA Tutor. Then play with DNA in three dimensions! (Hint: start out with standard "B-form" DNA)
4/25 - Today is National DNA Day. Go out and celebrate (and prepare for next week!)!
4/24 - Answer keys for Evening Exam 2 are available. Results hoped for by early next week. Stay tuned here.
4/23 - Please note that we are mostly skipping Chapter 24. However, I do want you to browse the chapter enough to know what chemical messengers are. What do they do and what, generically, do they look like?
4/23 - Help session TONIGHT at 8:30pm in our regular lecture hall (GSMN 64). Come armed with questions! Review session Thursday morning in-class. Come armed with your PRS clickers. Evening exam Thursday evening - same place as last time - see our syllabus for details.
4/16 - Please note that in the preliminary OWL report you can now find in OWL, the number shown is the number of assignments "mastered" and does not (yet) include any extra credit. So for a variety of reasons, you should consider that number to be a slight underestimate of your final OWL score.
4/16 - Play with our Course Grade Calculator to see how you are doing. See also "Progress Estimates" in the OWL Grade Book. Your approximate progress in OWL and PRS are shown there (these are useful for the calculator). Finally, you can see how we are doing as a course at the "Progress Reports" page.
4/15 - Play with CRABP in 3D - rotate, zoom, spin!
4/14 - Scores for Quiz 2 are now available via OWL. A histogram of scores is also available under Exams above. Scores are lower than I had hoped for...
4/10 - Want to look at proteins? Check out my 3D collection of proteins and nucleic acids. Rotate, zoom, have fun! You can also look at triosephosphate isomerase, the protein we looked at today.
4/10 - Answer keys for the in-class quiz are available.
4/8 - Please note that Quiz 2 from last year will not accurately reflect the content of our Quiz 2 coming up on Thursday in class. We are farther along this year than we were at Quiz 2 last year. Thursday's quiz will cover primarily from Chapters 20-21 and 27-29. For questions more relevant to that content, please look at Quiz 3 and the Final from last year. Questions are marked as to their relevant Chapter.
4/7 - Come hear a highly successful UMass alum speak at the Graduate School's 100th Anniversary celebration this Wednesday, April 9 - Chemistry's own David Mazzo.
3/31 - For your interest, I've prepared a page describing various artificial sweeteners. Use your new knowledge to look at the structures. As to their safety, see a Health Hints article.
3/25 - Sugar dangers - Someone raised the question of whether sorbitol was dangerous to pets. A quick search reveals that xylitol (a different sugar) does appear to cause insulin spikes in at least some pets, even though it is perfectly safe for humans. This likely reflects subtle differences in our metabolisms.
Sorbitol does seem to cause stomach bloating in some people. Aspartame (see also here) has been blamed for hundreds of problems, some perhaps correctly, some not.
This raises a more general question - whom do you believe ("I ate xxx and it turned me into a newt!")? Although not associated with any chemistry group, I like snopes.com. Check it out.
3/19 - The answer keys for Exam 1 have been updated again, this time to include more detail in the answers to some of the questions that you found challenging. Study the answers carefully - these questions are likely to appear again (though shuffled in structure to be sure that you understand the questions).
3/18 - Scores for the Evening Exam are available (as are scores for the first in-class quiz).
3/17 - Spring break homework assignment - OK, I'll assign it when we get back, but you can get a head start now. Please read the Scientific American article "Getting to know Nutraceuticals." Look for things we've learned: various fatty acids, polyphenolics, etc.
3/13 - Answer keys for tonight's evening exam are available - Updated 3/14 10:00am
3/12 - Reminder - as announced in class, the first evening exam will cover Chapters 10-19. Also we have a review session in class Thursday morning (Exam Thur evening 7:00p)
3/12 & 2/21 - Want old quizzes and exams for practice? Get them here!
3/10 - Please note that our first evening exam is coming up THIS THURSDAY, March 13, 7:00-8:00pm in Morrill II Room 131. Please bring multiple pencils and an eraser. Plan to arrive at least 15 min early.
- 3/10Makeups will be granted only with a valid excuse and will NOT be offered unless you contact Prof Martin (via OWL) at least 24 hours prior to the exam.
3/10 - Please also note that the OWL End of Chapter exercises for all Chapters covered on the exam have been re-opened. These are extra credit units. Working on them now will help you in two ways: 1) gain you some OWL extra credit (details to be determined later) and 2) will help you to score higher on the exam. It's win-win.
3/5 - Download today's PRS questions
2/26 - Answer keys and preliminary histogram for today's quiz are available for download
2/25 - Please remember that we have our first in-class quiz tomorrow, Feb 26, at the start of class - don't be late!
2/25 - Our Final Exam has been scheduled for May 20 at 10:30am (lasting two hours). Please arrange your schedules to allow for this. It will take place in GSMN 64, our regular lecture hall.
2/21 - Want old quizzes and exams for practice? Get them here!
2/21 - Materials from today's lectures are available for download.
2/20 - Want to see how everyone is doing in keeping up with their OWL assignments? Remember that their is really no good reason to not have full credit on OWL. You can repeat units as often as you need to (up until the deadline). If you don't get it the first time, try again. Remember that this 20% of your overall course grade! Why not get 100%?
2/15 - Please note that next Tuesday is a Monday class schedule - we will not meet. Although Monday (2/18) is a holiday, I can be available in the CRC during my 1:00p-3:00p office hours. If you're interested, send me a message via OWL any time before 1:00p Monday.
2/12 - View some alkanes in three dimensions.
2/12 - Summary of IUPAC nomenclature
2/11 - View Nina Theis' and Jeanne Hardy's lecture on line.
1/12 - OWL Organic Prep is available for all to brush up on the prerequisites for this course. It's free and you have nothing to lose (and everything to gain!).
1/10 - Please note the prerequisites for this course:
- CHEM 110 or 111 with a grade of 'C-' (or 'CD') or better.
1/10 - There is no lab associated with this course.

1/28 - Why organic? Why biochemistry? Are you concerned about environmental pollutants, such as steroid estrogens. To understand why dioxins cause problems, you need both organic and biochemistry. Sure, you can read about it in Wikipedia, but can you understand what you're reading?
1/28 - Indeed, environmental science works hand-in-hand with animal science, and we need people knowledgable in both the chemistry and the biochemistry to insure proper regulation.
1/27 - Disabled spacecraft will crash to earth in late Feb or early March. Contains hydrazine (H₂N-NH₂) fuel. Want to know more about hydrazine?
1/10 - Watch here for items from the news relevant to our class.
From last year:
5/2 - Melamine (or why animal management majors need organic and biochemistry). Read about the current controversy in these feeds: CNN (and here); Science Daily; a blog from Penn State's Animal Sci program; the political Daily KOS site
5/2 - Considering cramming just before your finals? Read this. Ability to make "transitive inferences" (answer exam questions) improves with time after initial learning. In other words, study for those finals now!
4/23 - Planning end-of-semester parties? Read "Binge Drinking Raises Cancer Risk"
3/9 - Sports drinks for pollinators? This article talks about plant nectars and how they have similarities to sports drinks. But the focus of this article is tobacco plant nectar - it contains nicotene! The nicotine (our text, pp 419 and 613-614) in the nectar is a repellant that while decreasing the amount of nectar consumed by winged visitors, increases the number of times they return to sip. [this article may require access from a UMass IP address].
Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants. - Cholesterol, saturated fats, low-fat diet, nutritionism, politics - an interesting read.
Global warming in the news: N.Y. Times, L.A. Times, the journal Nature
UN Report on Climate Change

Resources

This course requires a grade of at least C- or CD in one or more of the following courses or their equivalent: Chem 110, 111, or 112. If you do not have an appropriate college level course in general chemistry, you will be ill-prepared and so cannot take this course.

Students are expected to attend lectures. Attendance is taken via the Personal Response System (PRS).

Midterm (evening) exams are scheduled from 7:00p to 9:00p. Work on the exam will begin promptly at 7:15p and end at 8:15p. Don't be late!

Makeup exams. With good reason only (documentable course conflicts, serious personal tragedies). Make up exams must be arranged with Professor Martin in advance, by the end of lecture on the day preceding the evening exam. In case of an exam conflict between two courses, Academic Regulations state that the course with the higher final digit(s) in its schedule number (our schedule number is 11374) must offer a makeup. No other arrangements will be made for missed exams. There are no early exams.

Personal integrity and honesty are fully expected in all exams and in the classroom. In fairness to others, cheating of any kind will be prosecuted to the full extent of University regulations (specifically, see p. 28 discussions of cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and facilitating dishonesty).

	open	TA-staffed
Mon-Thurs	9:00am to 10:00pm	12:00pm to 10:00pm
Friday	9:00am to 5:00pm	12:00pm to 5:00pm
Saturday	12:00pm to 5:00pm
Sunday	5:00pm to 10:00pm

The Chemistry Resource Center (CRC) is the place to go for help of any kind. In the CRC (GSMN 152), you can talk with TA's and faculty, and ask them questions. The hours are extensive, as shown at right.

TA's are on duty in the CRC to help you. They may be working on computers or helping others, so if you need help, raise your hand and ask if there are any TA's who can help you.

EMail:	messaging via OWL	This WEB page last updated: 5/22/08, 5:20 PM
Office Hours:	Mondays, 1:00p-3:00p in the CRC	Spire class number 53700

20%	OWL - Online homework
5%	PRS - Class participation
5%	In-class quiz	Feb 26
5%	In-class quiz	Apr 10
5%	In-class quiz	May 8
15%	First Evening Exam	Mar 13	Morrill II (Room 131) - 7:00pm
15%	Second Evening Exam	Apr 24	Morrill II (Room 131) - 7:00pm
30%	Comprehensive Final Exam	May 20	GSMN 64 - 10:30am