A series of laboratory exercises has been designed to illustrate concepts traditionally encountered in general course on phtsical chemistry. In these exercises optical spectroscopic measruments electrochemical measruments kinetic measrumets and computer modelling are used to characterize the properties and behavior of electronic excited state. Specifically these tools are used to answer a question posed at the outset Upon interaction with series of molecules Q are the fluorescent states of 9-cyani- and 9 10-dicyanoanthracene quenched via an electron transfer process