Coupled Substitutions

Joseph Smyth

University of Colorado at Boulder

This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Peer Reviewed Teaching Activities collection.

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Scientific Accuracy
Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
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This page first made public: Jul 8, 2009

Summary

Students calculate the composition of minerals in weight percent given relative proportions of given end members. Students must also calculate mole percentages for feldspars based on their mineral analyses.

Mineral Analysis, Geology | College Lower (13-14), College Upper (15-16)

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Context

Audience

This problem set is designed for an undergraduate course in mineralogy for majors.

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

Students should have an understanding of introductory chemistry, including stoichiometry.

How the activity is situated in the course

This is a stand-alone exercise used as a homework assignment.

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

This activity is designed to improve students' ability to determine relative proportions of minerals given coupled substitutions.

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

Other skills goals for this activity

Description of the activity/assignment

Students are given two questions for each concept, in which they must (1) calculate the composition of minerals in weight percent given relative proportions of given end members and (2) calculate mole percentages for feldspars based on their mineral analyses (provided).

Determining whether students have met the goals

Students have successfully met the goals of the assignment if they answer the problem set thoroughly and accurately.

More information about assessment tools and techniques.

Teaching materials and tips

Activity Description/Assignment (Acrobat (PDF) 16kB Jul7 09)
Solution Set (Acrobat (PDF) 25kB Jul7 09)

Other Materials

Supporting references/URLs

This problem set is the 5^th of 10 homework assignments used in a Mineralogy course.
You can also access the course syllabus ( This site may be offline. ) which includes lecture Powerpoints, practice exams, and links to the other problem sets used in this course.

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