About Cost Effective Teacher

Editor
Harold H. Harris
Department of Chemistry
University of Missouri - St. Louis
315e Benton Hall
St. Louis, MO 63121
Phone: 314-516-5344; FAX: 314-516-5342
Email: hharris@umsl.edu

The goal of this feature column is to provide ideas for the construction and use of inexpensive laboratory apparatus or electronic devices, especially those that would be of interest to high school or introductory college chemistry teachers.

Mission Statement
This feature brings to light inexpensive materials for laboratories and demonstrations, especially those that would be of interest to high school or introductory college teachers. Articles describing the construction and use of apparatus or electronic devices should be based on materials that are readily available at relatively low cost. Techniques required for fabrication or assembly should be relatively simple. Tools required should be items that are likely to be accessible, such as a soldering iron, multimeter, electric drill, or scroll saw. Techniques requiring the use of more sophisticated instruments such as a wave form generator or digital caliper would be less appropriate for this feature. Diagrams and illustrations describing construction details must be clear and crisp so that they reproduce well.

I also encourage the submission of articles describing the use of available materials that do not require fabrication or assembly. All manuscripts should contain specific information about how the authors have used the materials. The advantages of using the materials, compared with other approaches to teaching the same concepts, should be described.

Manuscripts Previously Published in this Column
This feature formerly was titled Inventory Control. Some examples of published manuscripts include "A Cheap, Semiquantitative Hand-Held Conductivity Tester" (1995, 72, 728); "Useful Plastic Items Available" (1995, 72, 1028), and "Sampling and Analyzing Air Pollution: An Apparatus Suitable for Use in Schools" (1994, 71, 318).