Unit information: Advanced Practical Skills for Chemical Physics in 2024/25

Unit name	Advanced Practical Skills for Chemical Physics
Unit code	CHEM30008
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24)
Unit director	Dr. Parrish
Open unit status	Not open
Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units)	Intermediate Practical Chemical Physics Core Concepts in Chemistry for Chemical Physics
Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units)	None
Units you may not take alongside this one	None
School/department	School of Chemistry
Faculty	Faculty of Science

Unit Information

This unit develops the practical chemistry skills introduced in CHEM20006 to expand that essential base of practical chemistry into this more advanced level of study. The unit covers the main areas of chemistry with experiments based on inorganic, materials, physical, theoretical and analytical chemistry.

The unit provides training in practical chemistry and literature research in preparation for a research project, a career as a professional chemical-physicist, or in an area of employment requiring the skills of scientific reasoning, critical evaluation and numeracy. This course aims to provide an advanced understanding and knowledge of the main areas of practical chemistry, reinforcing and building on year-2 material and laying the basis to enable progress to independent laboratory work in later years. Students face challenging experiments, learn to research and choose appropriate techniques for a given problem and work independently, managing their own time.

The unit: 

• provides open-ended activities 
• requires students to manage their own learning 
• requires students to apply information that they have learned earlier in the programme to consolidate and extend their knowledge and understanding of chemistry. 

Your learning on this unit

On passing this unit, students will be able to: 

• Manage and structure their own laboratory time 
• Competently plan advanced laboratory experiments and investigations  including assessing safety risks
• Successfully carry out complex practical operations and techniques 
• Critically interpret data (which may be incomplete) 
• Identify solutions to experimental problems 
• Correctly report experimental procedures and results in an appropriate format 
• Evaluate results and hypotheses against the chemical literature 
• Write coherent, well-structured reports that place their results within the wider Chemistry context and which critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, concepts and data 
• Discuss investigations with academic members of staff and demonstrators 

How you will learn

Supervised practical classes and independent study. The Dynamic Laboratory Manual provides important e-learning resources in advance of practical sessions.

How you will be assessed

Students will be assessed by continuous summative assessment of coursework of four kinds: 

• Data summaries, designed to show that an experiment has been successfully carried out and that the student understands the results 
• Full reports, designed to show the marker that the experiment has been successfully carried out and that the student understands it, can place it within the wider Chemistry context and can critically evaluate the results 
• A longer project report, designed to allow the student to design experiments to investigate a genuine research problem. 
• A presentation, designed to show that the experiment has been successfully carried out and that the student understands it and can communicate verbally the reasons for the study and the meaning of the results 

To receive credit for this unit, students must make a reasonable attempt at every aspect of the teaching and assessment, including pre- and post-laboratory work, practical experiments, formal reports and presentations, group-working and any workshop activities. Failure to do so may result in credit being withheld, even if the overall mark is above the pass mark for the unit. Supplementary or resit assessment of this unit is only possible through engagement in the following academic year.

Resources

If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.

If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. CHEM30008).

How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks, independent learning and assessment activity.

See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.

Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit. The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.