Arsenic in Food and Water: Promoting Awareness ... - ACS Publications

Chapter 6

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Arsenic in Food and Water: Promoting Awareness through Formal and Informal Learning Julian Tyson* Department of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 710 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, Massachusetts 01002, United States *E-mail: [email protected].

For many years, Professor Julian Tyson has, through a variety of activities and programs, introduced secondary school and college students to the impact of arsenic contamination of the environment. Arsenic-related topics, which include groundwater in Bangladesh and rice around the world, are featured in formal classroom based courses, course-based research experiences, independent studies, and a variety of outreach and public engagement projects. A common feature is that students are recruited as members of a research group or investigative team and take ownership of the work by making relevant chemical measurements and participating in discussion of the implications of their findings. Leadership is provided in a hierarchical model in which, very often, more experienced students, acting as near peer mentors, guide the activities of the newly recruited members of the groups. In some of the programs, the students work with teachers who have been trained by researchers on the university campus. Both in-school and out-of-school programs are described. Many of the chemical measurements are provided by low-cost field test kits based on the Gutzeit-Marsh reaction, the modification of which has provided a driving force for a considerable number of research projects for the college students. Many hundreds of students have been involved and the programs have considerable potential for empowering the students as agents of dissemination and change, as they educate other members of

© 2017 American Chemical Society Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

their families and communities about the potential hazards of consuming arsenic-contaminated water and rice and how these can be mitigated.


Introduction Much has been written in the scientific literature related to gaining a deeper understanding of the biogeochemistry of arsenic, particularly of those aspects that impact human health. In addition to the articles appearing in the peer-reviewed primary literature, there is a steady output of review articles in the secondary literature, and there are several excellent recent textbooks (the tertiary literature) covering both the global situation (1), as well as the slightly more specialized areas of groundwater (2), and rice contamination (3). Although it is probably the case that interest in global arsenic-contamination issues in the scientific community, as evidenced by publications in scholarly journals, is at an all-time high, the outlook for the inhabitants of rural areas of Bangladesh, to select a subset of the world’s population that are particularly at risk, would appear to be just as grim as it was when the scale of the problem was first brought to the world’s attention some 30 years ago (4). Clearly there are no simple, easily implemented solutions that would provide “arsenic-free” water in sufficient quantities to meet the requirements of communities in rural Bangladesh for drinking, cooking and irrigation of crops (particularly rice). On the other hand, many countries with arsenic-contaminated groundwater do not face the same catastrophic outcomes—probably because the citizens have expectations that in return for their tax contributions to central government, they will receive, among other services, some degree of protection from potentially harmful chemicals in their foods and drink. Should their particular circumstances put them outside the safeguards created by their government, they have the resources to make the necessary changes to their immediate environment and lifestyle. However, even for the most developed nations in the world, public health is not necessarily the highest priority for governments facing other demands on their resources from areas that might be seen as equally, if not more, important, such as education, national security, and defense. The current debate in the United States over the long-term health implications of consuming rice (all of which is contaminated with carcinogenic arsenic compounds) provides an excellent example of the conflicting forces that shape public health policy in a capitalist democracy. From time to time, both scientists (5) and science writers (6) summarize the situation, usually concluding with a call for action. Items appear in the popular media related to some particular discovery, such as fruit juices sold in the United States contain measurable concentrations of arsenic, some of which may be in the form of the carcinogenic inorganic arsenic compounds, or that some wine may contain concentrations of arsenic higher than the maximum contaminant level of 10 µg L-1, set by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization. Relatively recently, for example, the US Food and Drug Administration announced the introduction of an “action level” for the 84 Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

inorganic arsenic content of rice cereal (7) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science organized a well-attended symposium at the February 2017 meeting in Boston entitled “Arsenic in Food: from soil to plate to policy.”


Promoting Dissemination and Engagement However, it is difficult for scientists to engage the public in any sustained way that would create a lasting awareness of any of the various arsenic-contamination situations. They are not constantly on the front page of the major newspapers, as they do not have the characteristics that media journalists use to select topics, such as immediate impact on the lives of individuals with whom many consumers of the media will readily identify. Hence, at the time of writing, the media are focused on (a) the changes to the legislation in the US by the incoming administration, (b) whatever weather-related disaster has befallen some unlucky township, and (c) threats to our national security by both terrorists and/or foreign governments. In this Chapter, I argue that approaches to public engagement that have the potential for long-term impact are (a) to involve students (at all stages of the education processes) in research projects related to arsenic-contamination issues, and (b) embed relevant topics in undergraduate courses and research experiences. Before describing the details of these various activities, I want to address the question of whether students at early stages of their educational careers can meaningfully participate in research. A number of authoritative organizations, such as the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), list “undergraduate research” as a high impact practice (8). The AAC&U is the leading association concerned with the quality, vitality and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. Founded in 1915, AAC&U now comprises more than 1200 member institutions—including accredited public and private colleges and universities of every type and style. In 2010, the AAC&U published “Five High-Impact Practices” (9) an account of the findings of research on learning outcomes, completion and quality by Jayne Brownell and Lyn Swaner, who were tasked by George H Kuh (the Chancellor’s Professor of Higher Education at Indiana University Bloomington and Director of the Indian University Center for Postsecondary Research), to “delve more deeply into the research that supports the general pattern of findings associated with the ten high-impact practices indentified in the 2007 AAC&U Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) report, College Learning for the New Global Century.” The five practices that were the subject of study by Brownell and Swaner were first-year seminars, learning communities, service learning, undergraduate research and capstone experiences. They attempted to separate the findings concerning “underserved” students as well as identify the “general effects.” In summarizing their findings of the research on learning outcomes, Brownell and Swaner write (9), “across the five practices, the most common outcomes . . . include higher grades, higher persistence rates, intellectual gains, greater civic engagement, increased tolerance for and engagement with diversity and increased interaction with faculty and peers.” With regard to underserved students, they conclude that although the numbers of studies examining the experiences of such students is far more limited, 85 Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


outcomes included “higher grades, higher persistence rates, a greater sense of belonging on campus, and higher rates of graduate student enrollment.” As the AAC&U has recently released a report of the preliminary findings of the Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) initiative (10) in which evidence is presented for arguing that learning among college students is on solid ground with regard to written communication, critical thinking and quantitative literacy. Almost all of this report is concerned with the methodology by which student learning was assessed (reading student papers, and scoring against a rubric, by experts), but it is not hard to envision that the discussions that are initiated as a result of valid evidence that students are learning will broaden to identify the high impact educational practices. And that many universities and colleges are investigating, and possibly investing in, the practices on their particular campus that lead to these demonstrable gains in student learning, which surely correlate with the success and satisfaction that all institutions of higher education seek to provide for their graduates.

The Nature of Research If research is defined as the generation and dissemination of new knowledge, it is difficult to envision how students can participate: they don’t know enough to contribute at the level commensurate with authorship on a publication. The guidelines for authorship of any published scholarly work by members of the University of Massachusetts Amherst are listed below (11), from which it may be seen that authorship by an undergraduate in a STEM discipline would be relatively rare. Guidelines for authorship of any published scholarly work at UMass Amherst: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

If a contribution is of a clearly technical nature (such as performing routine chemical analyses, transcribing interview records, or tabulating raw data), an acknowledgment could be sufficient. The same applies to professional help such as material preparation and instrument construction, drafting, statistical or computer assistance, and so forth. If, however, the central topic of the publication is the presentation or evaluation of a technique (including computer software), then a technical contribution may be of sufficient importance to merit authorship. If an individual suggested an idea that had an impact on the work development but did not actively participate in its implementation, acknowledgment of the contribution will be sufficient. If an individual contributed a key idea or ideas, and/or made other substantial creative contribution to the work in its design, execution, interpretation, and/or summary, then (s)he is entitled to authorship. A graduate student whose thesis work is used as the major source of material for a publication is entitled to authorship. However, (s)he is not automatically entitled to authorship if some material from the thesis is used in a review paper, proposal, progress or final report written by the 86

Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

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advisor or project director. In such a case, a reference to the material’s origin is sufficient. And finally, administrative or financial responsibility by itself does not merit authorship.

However, I think it entirely reasonable to explain to students what constitutes research and indicate that they are at the start of their career as professional scientists. My hand-out for students at the initial meetings is given below.


What is research? Definition: Systematic investigation with the goals of discovering and communicating new knowledge.

How is research done? By scientists working in industry, government labs, and universities and colleges Most organizations have a large number of research groups, whose members collaborate. Most groups are relatively small (< 10). Groups are dynamic. New members join; older members move on; leadership is stable. New members learn from the more experienced members.

New members need training: Background to problem (big picture) Local picture (what the group is interested in) Techniques to be used. Experimental design. Statistical evaluation of results Hypotheses to be tested. Plan of action Communication skills (written and oral) How to find out (library)

Research involves: Getting up to speed (finding out about relevant previous work) Keeping up to date (staying on top of recent contributions) Leading the field (generating and communicating new knowledge) Critical evaluation at all stages

87 Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

How is new knowledge communicated? Within members of research group at regular group meetings Conference presentations (oral or poster) Scientific literature: journal articles Recent work is reviewed periodically by experts, who write “review articles”.


Important stuff eventually finds its way into textbooks.

There is evidence (12) that some professional scientists are employed in (or have experience of) institutions that do not have (or maybe do not apply) such guidelines. John Griffiths writes, in the February 2017 issue of The Analytical Scientist, “I have encountered several situations where authorship expectations have been of a somewhat dubious nature.” For high school students and undergraduates, I provide further information about the publication process, consisting of passing around print copies of single issues of several different analytical chemistry journals and explaining the process by which a report of experimental work gets to be included in one of these “magazines.” By explaining the peer review and revision processes, students are introduced to the “way science works” and for the need to develop the skills necessary (a) to find, (b) to extract information from, (c) to evaluate critically the contents of, and (d) to write reports in the format of journal articles. I usually also take the opportunity to stress the importance of chemical analysis, on the basis that many investigations in a whole range of scientific disciplines need reliable information about the chemical composition of relevant materials, which is often difficult to provide. All researchers, therefore, need to know about the scope and limitations of chemical measurement methods, which are often set by the instruments used. Hence, all chemistry degree programs include courses on analytical chemistry, which everyone should take. I conclude by pointing out that by joining my research group for a semester, new members of my group will experience many of the components of the research process listed above, including the opportunity (a) to become familiar with the relevant big picture, detailed background, and previous work done, (b) to conduct a series of experiments in which the designs of the later ones can be based on the outcomes of earlier ones, (c) to draw conclusions, summarize the findings, make suggestions for further work and (d) create a written document containing the material of interest to the broader community (without necessarily defining exactly who this “broader community might be). I also point out some other features of a research program that will apply, such as (a) that the relatively inexperienced and unskilled workers work alongside the more experienced and knowledgeable workers, from whom they can obtain guidance and information as needed; (b) participants are part of an active community of scholars who regularly come together to discuss their interests, findings, and to examine critically relevant new knowledge in the field; and (c) 88 Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


participants take some responsibility for the design and implementation of the experiments and are allowed a certain degree of autonomy in the direction of the work and the design of the experiments. Thus, I would argue that the only feature of an authentic research experience that I cannot routinely provide for the high school students and undergraduates who participate is authorship of an article in a peer-reviewed primary journal. Nonethe-less, I consider it legitimate to describe these various programs for students as “research,” and to offer students the opportunity to join my research group and contribute to our on-going work related to the analytical and environmental chemistry of arsenic.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst Programs Graduate Students in K-12 Education Many of the activities in which students and their teachers have been engaged have been organized by the universities STEM Education Institute, at whose website (13) further details may be found. In 2002, the University received a grant from the NSF’s Graduate Student in K-12 Education (GK-12) program, and for four years organized a program in which graduate students spent several hours a week in middle-school classrooms working with the teachers to implement inquiry–based learning activities around the research interests and scientific expertise of a number of faculty members. One of the topics was arsenic-in-the environment. At the time, not only was arsenic contamination of drinking water a prominent topic, but also there was considerable debate about the possibilities for arsenic ingestion as a result of contact with wooden structures pressure-treated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA), and of the leaching of arsenic into the soil. As one of the goals of the program was to for students to understand the importance of chemical analysis, it was necessary to find a way to integrate chemical measurement into the classroom activities and not take samples back to the university campus and present the students with results. We chose the Hach 5-reagent kit to start with and then switched to the EZ kit when it became available, as it is less expensive and quicker. We realized that for almost all of the materials we were examining, it was not necessary to deal with a possible interference from sulfide. None-the-less, it was still not possible for students to prepare materials and run a test in one class period, and so the 24-hour version of the test was born, in which the strip was read in class the following day, 24 hours after the reaction was initiated rather than the 20 minutes recommended by the manufacturer. Meeting the in-class needs for chemical measurement stimulated an interest in field test kits, particularly those base on the Gutzeit modification of the Marsh test. The timely arrival of an NSF research grant in 2003 allowed some of these interests to be followed while strengthening active involvement with one of the teachers and her students through the “broader impacts” components of the grant. This program was selected, following a national competition, as an exemplary broader impact component and was showcased at an American Chemical Society National Conference in Washing DC in 2005 (14). 89 Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


Course-Based Research Experience for First-Year Undergraduates In fall 2004, an arsenic-related research experience modeled on the success with the middle school students in the GK-12 project was created for undergraduate students at UMass Amherst taking the first- or second-semester of the general chemistry sequence. This program is now in its 21st semester and over 560 students have participated. The basic format is that students work in small groups, sometimes with a more experienced undergraduate, on a project related to Professor Tyson’s interests in the environmental and analytical chemistry of arsenic compounds. There are several goals for this activity: getting the undergraduate student participants interested in research by creating an “authentic” research experience, raising awareness of the impacts of the transport and transformations of arsenic compounds in the environment, and inculcating an understanding of the critical importance of reliable chemical analysis in underpinning these kinds of studies. The plight of rural communities in Bangladesh is always featured in the background to many of these projects. Participants in the arsenic project write (a) a background paper that includes a description of one measurement technique, and some suggestions for the initial experiment (not exactly a research proposal, but the analogue of one), and (b) a final report in the form of a journal article. For most of the semester, outside of the lab each group works period to its own schedule, set by the members of that group. However, all the groups come together on three occasions, in addition to the very first meeting, at which each group makes a PowerPoint-assisted presentation of their progress. Each member of the group contributes to the oral presentation. Everyone in the program is therefore exposed to the topics that the other groups are working on, which always include a number related to the low-cost, small scale remediation of contaminated ground water. Other projects are concerned with improvements in the Hach test kit, or the development of methods of analysis for materials, such as soils, for which the kit is not originally designed. Recently several projects have been focused on the extraction and determination of arsenic compounds in rice. In the past two years, the projects have been closely linked to the Chemists Without Borders arsenic measurement projects (the low cost arsenicin-water test and the arsenic-in-rice measurement).

Research Academies for Young Scientists In the fall of 2006, the first cohort of teachers started work on after-school programs in an NSF-funded program called Research Academies for Young Scientists, known on the UMass Amherst campus as STEMRAYS (15). In this program teachers ran after-school science clubs on environmental. Arsenic topics formed the basis for activities by five teachers, each of whom led a club of about 10 students (grades 4 – 6). The following year, two teachers were trained to be club leaders. There was an education research component to the project and the results formed the basis of a publication in the science education literature (16).



Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers In the fall of 2010, work started on creating materials for the teacher participants in an NSF-funded Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program. The UMass Amherst program was known as STEM DIGITAL (digital images in geoscience investigations: teaching analysis with light) and once again featured several environmentally related themes for which chemical measurement was needed. This time all the measurements were of the interaction of ultraviolet, visible or infrared light with relevant materials captured in digital images that were subsequently analyzed by suitable software. For three summers, 30 teacher participants learned about the problems of arsenic contamination of groundwater and of rice and of the role of spectrochemical analysis (as exemplified, at least for the arsenic-related projects, by the Gutzeit-Marsh reaction augmented by digital image analysis) in supporting such investigations. This theme, of improvement through digital image analysis, formed the basis of part of a doctoral dissertation in, and subsequent publication by, the Tyson group (17). The teacher participants took materials back with them to further develop curricular materials for their students. Projects for High School Students Over the years, one or two high-school students have worked on summer projects in my lab. These “internships” have arisen either through contact with a parent of the students through another program, including some of the ones for teachers described above, or through a “summer school” initiative started a few years ago by our Provost. I only participated for one summer, as this was very time-consuming, requiring my presence in the lab or classroom essentially all day for two weeks. I did not consider it to be a useful diversion for the graduate students in my lab at the time. However, since the fall of 2013, students at Four Rivers Charter School in Greenfield MA have been engaged in small group project work for several weeks of their chemistry classes with teacher Andrew Patari. The activity is modeled on the course-based research experience for first year undergraduates, described above. Each year 20 – 30 students are involved, and so well over 100 high school students have learnt about the relevant topic. In the past two years, the projects have been closely linked to the Chemists Without Borders arsenic measurement projects (the low cost arsenic-in-water test and the arsenic-in-rice measurement). Arsenic Topics in the Chemistry Courses CHEM 101: A General Education Course for Non-Science Majors In spring 2013, I offered a version of CHEM 101 (a 4-credit, physical sciences general education course for non-science majors) with the provocative title “How Much Arsenic Do We Eat?” The course contained material not only to enable students to answer this question, but also to allow them to understand the possible health consequences of the chronic ingestion of small amounts of arsenic 91 Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


compounds (some of which are human carcinogens). Rice, therefore, featured prominently among the foodstuffs that were discussed. I also included information about “how science works” as the course aims to address “fundamental questions, ideas, and methods of analysis in the humanities and fine arts, social sciences, mathematics, and natural and physical sciences,” and to illustrate “the application and integration of these methods of analysis to real world problems and contexts,” to quote from the Universities description of “gen. ed.” courses. Students in the course also read a series of articles (5, 18–23), all but one of which, were taken from the original peer-reviewed scientific literature. To help them engage with the contents, a glossary of terms was provided for each article. Questions about the contents of the articles appeared in the quizzes and exams. I also included material relating to the analytical chemistry needed to provide information on the concentration of arsenic compounds in rice. Some of the articles selected for reading were primarily analytical and these (and the others) allowed me to demonstrate that some articles (a) are not well written, (b) contain mistakes, and (c) contain results that are questionable. I have taught the course in the face-to-face mode on campus each spring semester since then to a total of 600 students, I have also offered an online version of the course (also 4 credits) 14 times since the summer of 2013. The numbers are much smaller, typically 12 – 15 students per course for a total of about 186.

Faculty First-Year Seminar For three fall semesters starting in 2009, I offered a 1-credit faculty first-year seminar (FFYS) entitled “Arsenic Around the World” in which I took a broad brush to the canvas of arsenic-related topics. After a sabbatical break in 2012, I offered the seminar for a further three fall semesters, this time as “How Much Arsenic Do We Eat?” Each class contained about 15 students, for a total of about 90 students.

Junior-Year Writing in Chemistry The University of Massachusetts Amherst has a writing requirement consisting of two, three-credit, writing-intensive courses: Introduction to College Writing, taken in the first year, taught by instructors in the University Writing Program, and junior-year writing in the discipline taught by a discipline-specific instructor working in collaboration with a writing specialist. From 1996, members of the UMass Chemistry program’s junior-year writing class (essentially all chemistry majors) taught by myself (and Professor Holly Davis, a writing specialist at Smith College) were given an exercise in which they were asked to write an article for a non-science readership based on the contents of one original article in the primary peer-reviewed literature. Of the 16 times that this version of the course has been offered over the past 20 years, on 12 occasions the class was asked to explain the technical scientific content of “Arsenic in ground-water in 6 districts of west-Bengal, India - the biggest arsenic calamity in the world: 1. arsenic species in drinking-water and urine of the affected 92 Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


people” in language accessible to a non-scientific readership (24). In recent years, students were asked to write about the contents of either “Anthropogenic influences on groundwater arsenic concentrations in Bangladesh” (25) or “Arsenic levels in rice grain and assessment of daily dietary intake of arsenic from rice in arsenic contaminated regions of Bangladesh—implications to groundwater irrigation" (26). Although the classes contained some students who had been involved in the general chemistry arsenic-related research projects that started in 2004, I estimate that a further 300 chemistry students have learned about the ground-water contamination in SE Asia, and of the importance of chemical analysis in supporting research directed towards an understanding the associated geochemistry and the impact on the local populations. Instructional materials developed for the class formed the basis for a textbook in the Pearson Longman “Short Guide to Writing” series (27). Arsenic-in-theenvironment topics are featured, though not to the exclusion of other topics, when examples of particular types of writing are needed. As nearly 7,500 copies of the book have been sold (as of March 2017), it might be argued that the numbers of students aware of these topics is more than just the numbers of students taking the classes on the UMass Amherst campus.

Undergraduate Research Students pursuing a BS major in chemistry UMass Amherst are required to take a minimum of a one three-credit independent study course. In addition, students pursuing the advanced scholarship portion of the Commonwealth Honors College curriculum are required to undertake a two-semester, six-credit culminating experience that is modeled (at least in the STEM disciplines) on a laboratory-based masters thesis. Thus there is currently considerable interest on the part of students in “getting into a lab.” So although there is no shortage of interest in my research by such students, I have found that the introduction to the relevant issues through the course-based research experience described above has been an effective way of recruiting undergraduate students into my research group. I was also for a few years, a participant in a program run by the Dean of the College of Natural Sciences in which well qualified applicants to UMass were enticed to accept the offer by the promise of a place in a faculty lab in their very first semester. Eventually this program grew to accommodate about 50 students and was taken over and modified by the Provost’s office (broadened to included all disciplines, for example). In total, 89 UMass undergraduate students have worked in my research lab, many for multiple semesters. In addition, supplements to NSF research grants and an Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate, a major NSF initiative aimed at increasing participation in STEM graduate programs by under represented minorities (known as the NE Alliance (28) funded about 16 participants in REUs (research experiences for undergraduates) in my group, almost all of whom worked on arsenic-related topics. Not all of these 89 students worked directly on an arsenic-related project, but as the relevant environmental and analytical chemistry topics have been a major component of my work since 93 Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

about 1993, all students would have been aware of the problems through the regular weekly group meetings, and of course, the informal contacts in the lab. Again, in the last two years, projects have been closely linked to the Chemists Without Borders arsenic measurement projects (the low cost arsenic-in-water test and the arsenic-in-rice measurement). Our results so far are described in another Chapter in this book, and, because of the rather amazing coincidence of having a student from Bangladesh work on the rice measurement project, featured in a short video and press release by the UMass Office of Media Relations (29).


Graduate Student Research Since arsenic-related topics became a major, though by no means the only, research theme that formed the basis of dissertation or thesis work, about 31 doctoral and 7 masters students have completed their studies in my group. Even those students whose work was not arsenic-related were not only exposed to the work of other students (who were engaged in an arsenic project), but also acted as mentors for other participants in the various programs described above. The major roles for all graduate students was (a) in the course-based undergraduate research experience and (b) mentoring undergraduates in semester-long independent study or summer REU-type experiences. In addition, some students were involved in the GK-12 project and some in the Research Academies for Young Scientists. Seven of these former students are now working as chemical educators in high schools or colleges, mostly in the USA (one is in SE Asia and one in Africa). Public Engagement and Outreach I first used the title “How Much Arsenic Do We Eat?” in December 2011 for a public lecture demonstration sponsored by the American Chemical Society. This was my first attempt at getting members of the public involved as “citizen scientists” in the arsenic-in-rice project. At the time, the method we had developed (for the ITEST) program was able to detect inorganic arsenic in rice if it was present at a concentration of greater than, say, 200 parts per billion (ppb), and so (as much of the rice in people’s kitchens has concentrations below this value), many of the 20 or so participants failed to detect any arsenic. Refining this method has been an on-going research topic in my group, and has challenged a number of undergraduate students. The boundary conditions of only using reagents and equipment that one would encounter in the average kitchen make this a difficult method to develop. I have talked to general audiences about the arsenic in rice situation several times since then (at the Hitchcock Center, to students and parents at the Science Quest events at UMass, and to Girl Scouts at the Geek is Glam event at WPI). I was selected (along with this topic) to be a member of the first cohort of UMass Public Engagement Fellows, and during the tenure of my fellowship I wrote an article for a general readership that was published by The Conversation (30). According to the statistics available at the website, this article has been read almost 51,500 times. On a somewhat less upbeat note, a proposal to NSF joint with the Museum of Science, Boston for funds to run an “advancing informal science learning” project based on the arsenic-in-rice theme was not reviewed favorably. 94 Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


The same goes for at least one regular single-investigator proposal to the NSF’s Chemical Measurement in Imaging program. Since fall of 2014, I have been helping Chemists Without Borders (CWB) with two of their arsenic-in-Bangladesh projects (31). The most recent of these, the development of a method for inorganic arsenic in rice that can be implemented in a basic lab by interns at the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, has become the focus of much attention. The University featured the work in a recent press release and associated video (29), and my CWB colleagues have convinced me of the urgency of the work and so several undergraduates have been involved since the spring of 2016. Some of the restrictions of our kitchen method can be relaxed, and so the task would appear to be a little less daunting. The SCIX annual conference, organized by the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies, has for the past several years organized a session on “analytical chemists easing world poverty and/or solving global health challenges.” The Fall 2016 SCIX conference will be the second time I have spoken about our work with CWB.

Concluding Remarks On eight occasions during the regular semester (and another four occasions during the summer) I have taught CHEM III, the first semester of the year-long general chemistry course. The total number of students is probably around 2000. Although I have tried to enliven my classes with material drawn from my own research, the opportunities are somewhat limited (especially when all of the “classical” analytical chemistry is taught via the associated laboratory component), and I have typically confined my self to pointing out that there are some really important practical applications of atomic spectroscopy, such as measuring low concentrations of potential harmful elements in food and drink. So while there is potential to reach large numbers of students in such classes (UMass teaches CHEM III to some 2000+ students each year), the vast majority take the class because it is a requirement for their major and, conversations with students reveal that often they are not putting the mamimum effort into their learning—just enough to get a grade that will allow progress in their major. I think such students are less invested in becoming genuinely engaged with the material than they are when they take an elective course. Thus I think the physical science general education courses for non-science majors have the potential for greatest impact on students as they progress to becoming the citizens of tomorrow.

Acknowledgments The various projects on the UMass Amherst Campus have been supported by funding from the following NSF grants: DGE-0139272, CHE-0316181, DRL103115. Professor Tyson was awarded a National Science Foundation Discovery Corps Senior Fellowship (CHE-0725257) in 2007, which allowed him to travel to several countries in SE Asia, including Bangladesh. Funding from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and the US Geological Survey for the development of 95 Grosse; Mobilizing Chemistry Expertise To Solve Humanitarian Problems Volume 1 ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

undergraduate research projects is also gratefully acknowledged. The American Chemical Society is thanked for the sponsorship of a public lecture-demonstration “How much arsenic do we eat?” in December 2011.

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