Mineral Stoichiometry

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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This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are

Scientific Accuracy
Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
Pedagogic Effectiveness
Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
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This page first made public: Jul 8, 2009

Summary

Students are given mineral chemical analyses, from which students must determine cation formulae and mole ratios.

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 calculate mineral formulae and stoichiometry.

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

Other skills goals for this activity

Description of the activity/assignment

In this problem set, students must determine the mineral formulas based on weight percent of constituents. They must provide the correct stoichiometry and molar ratios to three decimal places.

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) 18kB Jul7 09)
Solution Set (Acrobat (PDF) 24kB Jul7 09)

Other Materials

Supporting references/URLs

This problem set is the 4^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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