A Colorful Activity to Introduce Kinetics and the Rate-Determining Step: Application to Metabolism and Metabolic Control Analysis
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Daniel F. McCain [2] ; Evelyn K. McCain [1]
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[1] College of Wooster
College of Wooster
City of Wooster, Estados Unidos
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[2] Virginia Military Institute, United States
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- Localización: Journal of chemical education, ISSN 0021-9584, Vol. 101, Nº 1, 2024, págs. 181-186
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
The following activity was developed to allow students to actively participate in and measure the kinetics of a multistep process. Each group of students is given a stack of blank coloring pages, each with a rainbow design printed on it. Each student in a group is given a different color crayon and colors in their portion of the picture before passing it to the next student while being timed. The rates of each individual step of the process and the rate of the overall process are calculated. During this activity, students can observe the rate-determining step of a process, the accumulation of intermediates, and how the overall rate relates to the rates of the individual steps. It can be used during the teaching of kinetics and mechanisms within introductory chemistry, physical chemistry, or biochemistry. In the current report, it has been used as an analogy to metabolic pathways and to introduce metabolic control analysis (MCA) quantitatively. It involves no special equipment and minimal setup time on the part of the instructor.
