[en] At the Irvine campus of the University of California, the Mark I, 250 kilowatt TRIGA reactor is used as a regular teaching and research tool by the Department of Chemistry which operates the reactor. Students are introduced to radiochemistry and activation analysis in undergraduate laboratory courses and the relation of nuclear to chemical phenomena is emphasized even in Freshman chemistry. Special peripheral items have been developed for use in graduate and undergraduate research, including a fast pneumatic transfer system for studying short-lived isotopes and arrangements for irradiations at low temperatures. These and other unique features of a purely chemically oriented operation will be discussed and some remarks appended with regard to the merits of a low budget operation. (author)