Experiments and Methods in the Integrated Chemistry Laboratory Course: An Alternative Pedagogy
Thursday, March 6, 2008
8:30 a.m., Room 235

Organizer:

Partha Basu and Mitchell E Johnson, Duquesne University

Speakers:

8:35     Advanced Laboratory at Westminster College:  A Student and Faculty Perspective  HELEN M BOYLAN, Westminster College

9:10     Integrating Nanoscience into the Undergraduate Curriculum: Development of an Integrated Laboratory Based on Zinc Oxide Nanomaterial and Its Photochemical Applications  CARLA JEHAN SPINA, McGill University, D Scott Bohle

9:45     Fry Vat to Fuel Tank: Biodiesel in a Physical/Organic Chemistry Lab  KEITH RIDER, Longwood University

10:20   Integrating Coordination Chemistry into Curriculum: Case Studies with Synthesis, Separation, Spectroscopy and Theoretical Modeling  PARTHA BASU, Duquesne University

10:55    The Integrated Laboratory Experience  MITCHELL E JOHNSON, Duquesne University

Overview

Traditional chemistry curricula include laboratory classes for each class, and often separate laboratory courses in e.g., Instrumental Analysis, Inorganic, Biochemistry and Physical Chemistry are offered. Curricula in chemistry are changing to keep pace with the change in demand for the workforce and knowledge. Greater emphasis is being placed on biochemistry, biomolecular chemistry, and genetics, which poses an opportunity to reanalyze the laboratory teaching portfolio. The Integrated Laboratory offers a laboratory teaching strategy that integrates techniques and information from a number of chemistry and molecular biology courses. This pedagogy takes advantage of real world experiments utilizing components from different sub-disciplines, often on more complex non-cookbook research type problems. The speakers of this workshop have developed and are using this strategy to teach undergraduate students in a way that crosses over the traditional boundaries.