Review comment: Wow moment, indeed. Another reference

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Joseph Lomax • U.S. Naval Academy (retired)
Retired after 35 years teaching at US Naval Academy; avid traveler; stained and fused glass hobbyist
November 17

Wow moment, indeed. Another reference

Great visuals.  It is amazing how magnetism affects chemistry.

My retired collegue, Wayne H. Pearson, published a J. Chem. Educ. article (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ed300545y) on using an analytical balance and cheap, strong magnets to show paramagnetism and diamagnetism.  He built a low cost, no waste lab which incorporates a lot of electron configuration practice which we still use every year.  Before we started using this, every year on the midterm exam students got 40-50% on a multiple choice question about diamagnetism vs. paramagnetism.  One we used Wayne's lab, the same question went to 88-95% correct.  I have seen nothing like it for taking a misapplied concept and correcting it.