Most students view the traditional topics of general chemistry as dry and boring.
The standard highlights in general chemistry books on how household bleach or dry cell batteries work are not very exciting for students or instructors. There is also rarely any ethics training associated with introductory courses in the chemical sciences. In an attempt to resolve these deficiencies, I introduced the concepts of pseudoscience and the investigation of anomalies into the curriculum of second-semester general and analytical chemistry courses at Mount Saint Mary's College during the spring semester of 1996. While the investigation of the unusual and the unknown has sometimes led to great scientific discoveries, it has more often led to great embarrassments. A study of the experimental procedures and motivation of the researchers in cases of pseudoscience can be extremely instructive, and fits in quite well with traditional topics in general and analytical chemistry, such as pH, chemical kinetics, intermolecular bonding, colligative properties, atomic structure, electrolysis and trace element analysis.