Downloaded via UNIV OF ROCHESTER on August 1, 2018 at 22:03:18 (UTC). See https://pubs.acs.org/sharingguidelines for options on how to legitimately share published articles.
Chapter 12
A Distributed, Multi-Institution REU Site on Environmental and Green Chemistry James A. Rice* Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota 57007, United States *E-mail:
[email protected].
South Dakota State University (SDSU) and partner institutions Black Hills State University (BHSU) and Northern State University (NSU) offered a 3-year, 10-week summer REU Site program focused on environmental and green materials chemistry that provided students with multi-disciplinary research experiences in the areas of catalysis and less hazardous synthesis, energy efficiency and safer solvents, and the environmental chemistry of natural systems. Its goal was to provide cutting-edge research experiences, mentoring and research-themed professional development to increase student preparedness to pursue graduate school or environmental and green chemistry careers. Student participants learned how to apply chemical knowledge to research problems in environmental and green chemistry, developed their professional technical communication skills, and developed an understanding of research educational and career opportunities available beyond an undergraduate degree through an integrated, dynamic program of research, professional development and student activities that was facilitated by distance education tools. BHSU and NSU used this program to introduce and integrate undergraduate research into their chemistry curricula.
© 2018 American Chemical Society Griep and Watkins; Best Practices for Chemistry REU Programs ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
Introduction South Dakota State University’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the corresponding departments at BHSU and NSU offered a summer REU program focused on environmental and green materials chemistry. Its primary goal was to provide authentic research experiences, mentoring and research-themed professional development to increase student preparedness to pursue graduate school or environmental/green chemistry careers. This REU Site program was offered for 3 years from May 2015 through August 2017. Environmental chemistry seeks to understand how natural or anthropogenic chemical compounds affect organisms and naturally occurring processes. Green chemistry (1) is thinking about how to “do” chemistry in ways that are sustainable and minimize negative environmental effects. These two chemistry sub-disciplines represent a range of processes that span the continuum from natural to industrial. This REU Site’s research projects reflect this continuum. Three of research projects are aligned under Green Chemistry Principles 3 (less hazardous chemical synthesis) and 9 (catalysis) and develop novel materials that can be used to produce energy from sustainable sources. Three projects align under Green Chemistry Principles 6 (energy efficiency) and/or 5 (safer solvents) and look at the environmental behavior of chemicals and the use of supercritical fluids. Three are focused on “Chemistry of Natural Environments,” providing opportunities to explore basic environmental chemical processes in the atmosphere and soils. Table 1 summarizes the specific research project areas.
REU Site Goals This REU Site had two overarching goals, to provide research experiences for students from the Northern Great Plains who attended institutions with limited research opportunities and to help strengthen the chemistry programs at BHSU and NSU by integrating research into their undergraduate chemistry curricula as a capstone experience. Research experiences for students at institutions with limited opportunities for undergraduate research are clearly needed. It provides a critical educational experience that supports the application of content knowledge and laboratory techniques obtained in an instructional setting to solve research problems. By connecting student STEM education to real-world research needs, this REU experience helped students put their undergraduate education into the context of the importance of STEM in today’s society. This REU site also built on NSF EPSCoR research and educational infrastructure investments in the chemistry departments at the two primarily undergraduate institution partners. BHSU and NSU are primarily undergraduate institutions with Fall 2016 total enrollments of approximately 2000 and 1500 students, respectively (2). South Dakota State University, BHSU, and NSU are separated from each other by considerable distances (Figure 1). Consequently, the program had to utilize educational communication technology and distance collaboration methods to overcome the distances involved. Since 2003, South Dakota has utilized the NSF EPSCoR program to develop considerable 178 Griep and Watkins; Best Practices for Chemistry REU Programs ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
infrastructure to support state-wide, distributed STEM research and education programs. A variety of strategies have been instituted to build the communications infrastructure needed to support these types of programs, but it was realized early in the process that they are most successful when they are built on an initial, face-to-face interaction with occasional but regular face-to-face follow-up meetings. In other words, the STEM community in the state has found that successful distributed research and education programs build, and build on, relationships between faculty, research staff, and students.
Table 1. REU Site research project areas. Faculty who served as research mentors for each project and their affiliations are identified. Projects Aligned Under Chemistry of Natural Environments • Measuring Concentrations of Chemical Species in Polar Ice Cores, Jihong Cole-Dai, SDSU • Crystal Structure Identification in Natural Organic Matter, Guangwei Ding, NSU • Role of Self-Assembly in the Persistence of Natural Organic Matter, James A. Rice, SDSU Projects Aligned Under Green Chemistry Principles 3 & 9 • Environmental Toxicity of Nanomaterials Used in Renewable Energy Generation, Daniel Asunskis, BHSU • The Development of Photoredox Catalysts Using Earth Abundant Metals, Katrina Jensen, BHSU • Enhancing Plant Drought Tolerance via Quinoa and Novel Analogs, George Nora, NSU Projects Aligned Under Green Chemistry Principles 5 & 6 • Biofuel Synthesis from Waste Hydrocarbons Using Ti-Niobate Nanosheet Catalysts, Fathi Halaweish, SDSU • ICE Concentration Linked with Extractive Stirring (ICECLES), Brian Logue, SDSU • Novel Solvent Systems for Green Separations, Doug Raynie, SDSU
This program also sought to develop collaborations between faculty at BHSU and NSU and South Dakota’s largest doctoral programs in chemistry and biochemistry located at SDSU. The BHSU chemistry department graduates several chemistry majors a year. Over the past several years it made significant investments in this program (e.g., hiring new research active faculty and acquiring new instrumentation such as high-resolution solution-state NMR) to align it with ACS certification requirements. Northern State University’s program is just beginning the process of developing the infrastructure to offer a chemistry undergraduate degree. The collaborations embodied in this REU Site sought to expand undergraduate research at both institutions as they continue to grow and develop their baccalaureate programs in chemistry with a goal of achieving American Chemical Society (ACS) certification for their chemistry majors. 179 Griep and Watkins; Best Practices for Chemistry REU Programs ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
Figure 1. Location of institutions participating in in the REU Site on Environmental and Green Chemistry. The REU Site’s targeted student population consist principally of undergraduate STEM majors in their second year of study or beyond from institutions where authentic research programs are small or non-existent. Factors driving student recruitment were Institutional Size and Resources (i.e., smaller institutions with four or fewer of research-active faculty), Expanding Participation via a targeted recruitment strategy, and a Regional Focus intended to bolster and invigorate research output at smaller schools in the Northern Great Plains region. We sought to enroll more than 60% of the participants over the three-year project from schools in South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Wisconsin. Interested students applied online and submitted their name, home institution, major course of study, courses completed within the major, GPA, a personal statement that outlined why this program was of interest, a description of their career goals, and how the REU program would help them achieve these goals, two preferences for REU mentors, and the preferred institutional location (SDSU, BHSU, or NSU) of their REU experience. Two letters of reference from individuals who could address the student’s commitment to a REU experience were submitted separately. The application evaluation criteria employed, in order of importance, were: desire for STEM career; location and type of home institution; student GPA; and strength of recommendation letters.
Student Program The student research experience focused on critical elements and principles of environmental and green chemistry (Table 1). The REU Site program also provided students with a well-rounded program of supplemental professional training. The esprit de corps of tightly integrated research groups and the 180 Griep and Watkins; Best Practices for Chemistry REU Programs ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
development of REU student cohorts were accomplished with distance education technology that provided virtual, high-definition, real-time research collaboration meetings as well as the vehicle through which seminars, professional development activities, and other training were implemented for all site participants. While REU participants came together for face-to-face meetings several times per summer, an integrated program would not otherwise be possible due to the distances separating SDSU, BHSU and NSU (Figure 1). Professional Development Activities The follow activities were held each week to enhance the student’s experience, broaden their perspective of modern chemical research in environmental and green chemistry. Communication Skills development workshops sought to help REU participants develop their oral and written communication skills. It focused on effective communication via brief research reports, technical manuscripts, research poster preparation and presentation, and oral research presentations. Technical communication activities culminated with the preparation and presentation of a research poster and submission of a final technical report to the research mentor. Technical Research Seminars were given by research mentors and focused on various aspects of the research, techniques of interest, and/or best practices (e.g., integrating research and education or the research fundamentals of environmental and green chemistry). Research Tools Training was offered by research mentors to provide professional development training targeted at helping the students develop basic research tools such as “Design of Experiments and Statistics,” “The Research Notebook,” “Time Management,” “Literature Search Tools and Training,” and “Research Ethics”. Pathways After Graduation were workshops on evaluating graduate schools to align with students’ personal goals and the application process, securing funding and persisting in graduate school, and opportunities for research careers in the chemical industry. Research Group Meetings provided research theme participants with opportunities to discuss progress and research challenges they faced. To fulfill the expectation for a capstone research presentation, this REU Site took advantage of a novel opportunity organized annually by the SD EPSCoR Program Office. South Dakota public higher education enrolls approximately 35,000 students in its six institutions yet had 14 NSF REU Site programs in 2017. The “distributed nature” of these schools makes it difficult for the final research experience to be anything much more than a weekly research presentation. Recognizing this, the SD EPSCoR Program Office began in 2014 to organize an end-of the summer “SD EPSCoR Undergraduate Research Symposium” to provide an opportunity for the state’s REU Site student participants to connect and network through an authentic research meeting experience (3). In 2017, 175 students presented research posters. In addition to providing a venue for research presentations, this day and a half meeting offers REU student participants the opportunity to explore STEM career options including a meeting “exposition” of South Dakota graduate schools and employment interviews with South Dakota STEM companies, and a workshop on preparing a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) application presented by NSF GRFP program staff. 181 Griep and Watkins; Best Practices for Chemistry REU Programs ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
REU Site Program Assessment The project assessment plan focuses on student, faculty and administrator perceptions of the institutional importance of research in undergraduate STEM curricula. The plan includes both formative and summative components that address the program’s overarching goals. Formative components will provide feedback necessary to refine the REU program throughout the three years to ensure quality implementation of the training program. Success at achieving project goals were measured by the methods summarized in Table 2 and described below.
Table 2. Project Evaluation Plan Data Sources & Instruments
Guiding Evaluation Questions: In what ways do participants’ understanding, skills, and confidence grow as a result of participation in the program? Do students have a greater understanding for career options? Does participation influence changes in career trajectory?
1. Entry & exit interviews with participants & research mentors 2. SURE survey, SUSSI instrument, CAEQ
Do participants have a greater appreciation for the collaborative and collegial nature of scientific research? What aspects of the program were most effective at creating a collegial experience for participants?
1. Exit survey 2. Exit interviews 3. NSSE data
In what ways does mentorship support growth in participants’ understanding, skills, and confidence? Do participants continue to receive and/or seek mentorship beyond participation? Do mentor attitudes change as a result of participation?
1. Exit survey, SURE 2. Exit interviews with participants & research mentors 3. Post-site follow-up survey with participants and research mentors 4. FSSE data
What are the perceived strengths of increased research output from academic leadership at the various institutions? What barriers exist to sustainability of undergraduate research programming, and how will they be addressed?
1. Annual course impact survey 2. Interviews with academic leadership
Formative program assessment used a mixed method approach that focused on student participants included data gathered from entrance and exit surveys, the Survey of Undergraduate Research Experiences (SURE) (4), the Chemistry Attitudes and Experiences Questionnaire (CAEQ) (5), Students Understanding of Science and Science Inquiry (SUSSI) (6) as well as interviews with students and faculty/research mentors. A pre-/post- program survey was created and given to faculty research mentors to determine the extent of commitment and involvement on the part of faculty. The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) (7) and the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) (8) were administered at all partner institutions. Their data were mined with specific attention to student engagement as a function of experiential learning. Data 182 Griep and Watkins; Best Practices for Chemistry REU Programs ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
were collected by interviews to determine the extent and meaningfulness of interactions between research participants, and between participants and mentors. A final series of assessments focused on institutional change and sustainability at the partner institutions. These included surveys of campus climate toward implementing/sustaining undergraduate research and interviews with faculty and academic leadership to determine how best to build research output and address sustainability issues. Summative evaluation data included REU student exit interviews, an exit survey, and data gathered from SURE, SUSSI and CAEQ. Information was collected from faculty and research mentors through interviews to assess their perceptions of students’ growth in knowledge, skills, and confidence.
Program Outcomes The program made significant progress towards achieving its goals during its first three years (Table 3) It exceeded its goals of 60% student participants from schools with limited research opportunities and students primarily from northern Great Plains institutions. It also conducted meaningful research resulting in numerous presentation and several publications coauthored by REU participants to date (9, 10).
Table 3. Summary of Major Program Outcomes • 33 students total in Years 1-3 o 73% from schools within targeted recruiting area ▪ SD* (16), IA* (2), IL (1), IN (1) MN* (5), NC (2), NE* (1), NY (1), OR (2), PA (2) o 79% (26 of 33) from schools with limited research opportunities • Presentations o SD EPSCoR REU Symposium: 36 o Regional ACS meetings: 10 o National meetings (e.g., ACS): 9 • Publications to date with REU student coauthors o 2 published and 1 in review • Integrating research into curricula o BHSU applied for ACS accreditation of chemistry major *
primary recruiting targets.
Students came to the REU experience with mature conceptions of science and its progress, and the REU program itself appeared not to shift their beliefs substantially. Student conceptions about research and the nature of scientific inquiry changed slightly in a positive direction (i.e., a more mature understanding of the scientific process) as a result of REU participation. Most students stated 183 Griep and Watkins; Best Practices for Chemistry REU Programs ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
that research was an arduous process that rarely followed a linear strategy, and a few expressed the idea that the length of a summer REU Site experience (10 weeks duration) wasn’t adequate for developing a complete understanding of how to approach a research project. It was observed over all three annual student cohorts that students with previous authentic research experience expected less of their mentors in terms of time spent demonstrating techniques or explaining concepts, while those with no previous formal research experience maintained higher expectations of their mentors. Comparison of student data from pre-/post-experience measures related to mentoring demonstrated that students’ needs were met. Student participants indicated that the most positive aspects of their REU participation were establishing a connection with their research mentor and the hands-on experience with sophisticated scientific instrumentation which was often not available at their home institutions. Students reported the least impactful parts of the REU experience were some of the professional development activities/seminars; two seminars mentioned specifically were those on laboratory safety and research ethics. Institutional administrators at BHSU and NSU indicated that efforts are underway to create and grow a culture of research among their faculty in order to student research and experiential learning opportunities to enrich their STEM curricula. When administrators at these primarily undergraduate institutions were asked about their individual institutions, they felt that the major barriers to incorporation of research into curricula were inconsistent funding and insufficient faculty time to devote research activities. Research mentors and administrators at these institutions indicated that while progress was made, there is still much that needs to be done with students, faculty and administrators to produce the culture change needed to achieve this goal.
Acknowledgments The efforts of campus coordinators Daniel Asunskis (BHSU) and George Nora (NSU) were instrumental to the success of this REU Site. The REU Site was supported by the NSF Environmental Chemical Sciences program (Award #1461092). The SD EPSCoR Undergraduate Research Symposium was organized and sponsored by an award from NSF’s EPSCoR program (Award #1355423).
References 1.
2.
ACS Green Chemistry Website. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/ greenchemistry/what-is-green-chemistry/principles/12-principles-of-greenchemistry.html (accessed Jan. 30, 2018). SD Board of Regents Factbook Homepage, 2017. https://www.sdbor.edu/ mediapubs/factbook/Documents/FY17Factbook.pdf (accessed Jan. 30, 2018). 184 Griep and Watkins; Best Practices for Chemistry REU Programs ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
SD EPSCoR, Undergraduate Research Symposium Homepage, 2017. http://sdepscor.org/resources/undergraduate-research-symposium accessed (accessed Jan. 30, 2018). 4. Lopatto, D. Survey of Undergraduate Research Experiences (SURE): First Findings. Cell Biol. Ed. 2004, 3, 270–277. 5. Dalgety, J.; Coll, R. K.; Jones, A. Development of chemistry attitudes and experiences questionnaire (CAEQ). J. Res. Sci. Teach. 2003, 40, 649–668. 6. Liang, L. L.; Chen, S.; Chen, X.; Osman, N. K.; Adams, A. D.; Macklin, M.; Ebenezer, J. Student Understanding of Science and Scientific Inquiry (SUSSI): revision and further validation of an assessment instrument. 2006 Annual Conference of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), San Francisco, CA, April 3−6, 2006. 7. Indiana University, National Survey of Student Engagement. http:// nsse.indiana.edu/html/about.cfm. 8. Indiana University, Faculty Survey of Student Engagement. http:// fsse.indiana.edu/html/overview.cfm. 9. Maslamani, N.; Manandhar, E.; Geremia, D. K.; Logue, B. A. ICE Concentration Linked with Extractive Stirrer (ICECLES). Anal. Chim. Acta 2016, 941, 41–48. 10. Crawford, T.; Kub, A.; Peterson, K.; Cox, T.; Cole-Dai, J. Reduced perchlorate in West Antarctica snow during stratospheric ozone hole. Antarctic Sci. 2017, 29, 292–296. 3.
185 Griep and Watkins; Best Practices for Chemistry REU Programs ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
