A Source for Science Projects In addition t o its other functions, THIS JOURNAL can serve as a source of provocative ideas for independent projects for secondary students. Finding a basic procedure or apparatus from which t o develop an investigation is an important first sten in initiatinr student research. Last vear our students embarked uvon two quite successful series of exueriments that or&eeded alon;lines first sureested hv ~ O U K N A L articles of verv different tvoes. .... One ewrpticmally fruitid pn,jrrt wa* underlaken by a junior,Trrri Diet?, uu the basis "fa rdativcly technical article entitled "Exprrimcnting with Liquid Mtml,ranes.""l'hiistudent mudilicd thesystem s ~ p p e i t e dby the authursand usrd it to study factors affecting the transport of a chemical not referred to in the literature. This investigation won many awards, including First Place a t the Kentucky Junior Science Symposium. This year Dietz is attempting t o achieve a chemical separation with a liquid membrane system that is no longer so closely related physically t o the apparatus originally described in the article. A less technical, although equally useful, source of ideas is the Applications and Analogies feature. A sophompre, Nancy Hils. became interested in an item in that column about erowine "concrete" from ~ e a w a t e r . ~ S succeeded he in develoninr.. a similar system in an aquarium cmtnininy iynthetic w e a n water. Like Diet?'*, her project wun many awards, and she ic cuntinuing tu invwti+~trthe influence ofvaricms fartor* upon the p n r r e s Many t r f the pupular sourcrr f n m which this column editor draws applications can also suggest research projects if one approaches them with that in mind.
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' Lamb, J. D.. Christensen. J. J.. and ian, R. M., J. CHEM.E m . . 57,227 (1980). 'DeLorenm, Ron. J. CHEM.EDUC.. 58,787 (1981). Judith Averbeck, SND Mary Ethel Parrott, SND Notre Dame Academy Hilton Drive Covington, KY 41001
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