Scientific Communication and the Unified Laboratory Sequence

We have been teaching a sequence of Unified Laboratory courses at Willamette University since 1982. These courses introduce students to modern laboratory methods and instrumentation, the relationship between theory and experiment, and the use of creative thinking in problem solving. Recent events have convinced us to revise these courses substantially. In this revision we introduce new techniques such as molecular modeling, and we also expand our students' repertoire of scientific communication beyond the simple laboratory report.