Home Pages of · Ryu Group at RPI · Ganesan Group at UT-Austin Acknowledgement : This work is supported by NSF DMR CAREER award (449736).	Virtual Polymer Laboratory by RPI (NY) & UT-Austin (TX) since 2001
Levels Level 1: Basic Chemistry Laboratory Techniques e.g. How to make dry ice? How to make -78 ^oC bath? Level 2: Advanced Placement Chemistry Laboratory e.g. How to use vac/Ar lines? What are liquid crystals? Level 3: Polymer Synthesis & Characterization  Laboratory e.g. Anionic polymerization of polystyrene Level 4: Thermal and IR Identification of "Plastics around us" e.g. Soda bottles & caps Starbucks cups & straws Various cups Level 5: Polymer Modeling (UT, Austin, Prof. Ganesan) e.g. We can't see molecules on a computer, but we can draw them. Level 6: Atomic Force Microscopy on Polymers e.g. What is AFM?  How does it work?  How does it contribute to nanotech?  Can we see polymer morphology?	Welcome to "Virtual Polymer Laboratory" This is an educational web resources to (1) provide visual teaching modules (video and/or picture clips) of basic/advanced wet chemistry experiments and of polymer modeling/theories for high school chemistry teachers and (2) provide experimental results on thermal & IR analysis of “Plastics around us” obtained by high school and undergraduate students for the identification of different kinds of polymers that we use in our daily life. Level 1: Basic Chemistry Laboratory Techniques To visualize and explain basic chemistry lab skills for HS science students/teachers over the internet To introduce different types of chemical glass wares and experimental setups to HS and college undergraduate students Level 2: Advanced Placement Chemistry Laboratory · To visualize and archive difficult AP chemistry lab experiments Video clips and picture can be used by HS science students/teachers over the internet in their classrooms Level 3: Polymer Synthesis & Characterization Laboratory · To visualize and archive different types of polymer synthesis schemes To help undergraduate students taking introductory polymer chemistry to have tangible idea on what they should expect while making polymers in the laboratory. Advanced educational resource archives on polymer science Level 4: Thermal and IR Identification of "Plastics around us" · To gain public interest and to promote awareness about using different types of polymers in our daily lives. Plastics recycling – identification and separation of different polymers Level 5: Polymer modeling (from Prof. Genasen at UT-Austin)" Title is tentative Soon to come Level 6: Atomic Force Microscopy on Polymers Nanotechnology teaching module developments based on AFM techniques developed by HS teachers and students (NSF-funded NSEC educational outreach efforts) Actual AFM morphology results from HS teacher/student team	Links to Other Virtual Laboratory Sites (Click here) e.g. Virtual Chemistry Laboratory (Oxford University) General Chemistry Lab Demos (the University of Wisconsin, Madison) NIST Webbook Links to Other Polymer Sites (Click here) e.g. Macrogalleria : A Cyberwonderland of polymer fun (the University of Southern Mississippi) American Plastics Council Directory of Recycled Plastic Products Plastics.com NY State Center for Polymer Synthesis at RPI

* If you want to join our web-based educational efforts, send an email to me (Prof. Chang Y. Ryu at ryuc@rpi.edu). 

We wish to share more educational resources to enhance the quality of teaching in HS and college.  Thanks.

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