edited by
SUSAN H. HIXSON National Science Foundation Washington. DC 20550
Highlights
CURTIS T. SEARS. JR. Georg~aState Un~ven~ty Atlanta, GA 30303
Projects supported b y the NSF Division of Undergraduate Education Consequences of a Chemical World: An Innovative Approach to Teaching Environmental Chemistry Kenneth L. Busch and Kenneth D. Hughes Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332-0400
Undergraduate students a t the Georgia Institute of Technolorn are among the most technically astute students i n c e country. ~ i s ~ ithis t e background, when asked about t h e environment, they display a s strong a chemophobia (a negative perception of chemicals and chemistry) a s students elsewhere. To counteract this attitude, we have been developing new courses in environmental science at both the freshman and advanced undermaduate levels. Our annroach is to nrovide both the environment (a marine aquarium housed within the chemistry building) and the tools for chemical analysis (a variety of portable, rugged, and sensitive field instruments), and challenge the students to understand ecosystems from a chemical viewpoint. Let us begin with the first-year course. What constraints (and opportunities) are part of a first-year course? First, the approach, we believe, must be broader than the typical "environmental chemistry course"; the background of chemistrv for iucomina - students is not uniform enouch - to delve into complex issues. The coverage in our new course is intentionally onen-ended: the goal is not to transfer facts and figures, cut t o show students that they can evaluate the environment from a chemical and an analytical perspective. As a result, the teaching approach is predicated on what we call challenge exposure. This approach requires students to confront environmental problems such as field sampling, integration of conflicting data, decision-making with incomplete information, and risk assessment in an often contentious public forum. Finally, the program is leueraged. A course requirement is that the students themselves reiterate (through presentations and the development of specific experiments) aspects of the course and program in local school and community forums. Thus, some of the "laboratories" are moved outside the University to environmental laboratories, to public hearings, and to industrial laboratories and production sites. Classroom activities supplement the laboratory field work. General tonics covered include environmental statistics, environmental sampl~ngand modcbng, ecosystem processes of dccumulat~onand demadatton, environmental databast~s, toxicology, epidemiology, and an introduction to risk assessment, as well as a summary of the areas of legislative and regulative action. The first-year course is complemented with a new approach to teaching a n upper level analytical laboratory course that uses samples obtained from an aquarium. A 300-gallon salt water marine aquarium has been installed in a central location of the chemistry building. It is very visible to students and visitors, and especially attracts at-
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tention when students are eathered around the aauarium taking samples for analysis. Students monitor the aquarium four davs a week. determinine ammonia. nitrite. nitrate, and ihosphate$ by spectro~hotomet& sulfate by panmetry; dissolved oxygen, salinity, and alkalinity by redox and potentiometric methods; and calcium/magnesium bv EDTA titrations. This course incorwrates analvsis of real-world samples with both classical and inst&mental methods while providing a continual feeling of "discovery" for each student. It provides intense training in the techniques of pipeting, weighing, dilution, and spectrophotometric calibration. I n the upper-level, aquarinmbased course, students work individually as well as part of a team. This annroach includes comnonents novel to "environ~~, and statistical mental Z e m i ~ t r y includingAanalytical rigor, topics in toxicology, hands-on laboratories for laboratory analysis and field monitoring, and substantial efforts to leverage the effect of the course into other universities and the community. The written and visual materials develoned are available not onlv for re~etitiveuse in the course, but also for a t other universities and in the community During the course each student 1) gains a general backgmund of the concepts of environ-
2)
3)
4,
5)
mental analysis, environmental modeling, and risk assessment, recognizes the individuals and agencies responsible far environmental regulation and monitoring, and comes to appreciate the limitations and capabilities of these groups, recognizes the balance between the beneficial impact of chemicals and the detrimental asoeds of their use. and the mewtable shlnr m that balsnrb with tme, with &ale, and with increased undarstandlna, is muhvated to sekout theinfurmatron and theexpertw relevant to a rhemwal or envtmnmrntnl pmhlcm of lnfcrest, and finally is able LO maneuver from grncrnl scicntifie principlcs ro pcrsnnnl wnluntian, apinlon, and amon on 3penfie.i as they are encountered.
The most important element of the program is the sense of "discovery" that is present throughout the academic quarter. Since both the field laboratories and the aquarAm ecosystem are dynamic systems, the students cannot predict their experiences from week-to-week or from quarter-to-auarter. The maintenance of the aauarium is based on s t d e n t measurements; the health of the fish is in the hands of the students, and they take the responsibility seriously. Acknowledgement
The National Science Foundation Division of Undermaduate Education has nrovided sunnort for this nroiect s;pport for the gq&;bough Grant No. ~~~-'9155985. ium has been provided by the Georgia Tech Teaching Fel-
lowship from CETL, and from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
An Introductory Chemistry Course Involving Nonlinear Dynamics Joseph E. Earley Georgetown Ln versity Wash nglon. DC 20057 There have been only three truly rnajor shins in the general view of how the world works (''the idea of nature" ( 1 ) ) . In ancient Greece, mythlcal thinlung became transformed into ohilosoohv. and notions about how the world o ~ e r a t e s were' fundam&.ally changed. During the ~enai'ssance, Greek ideas were s u ~ ~ l a n t and e d a new. mechanistic. outlook on the natural world emerged, as Newtonian science develooed. Introductory science courses generally use a traditional "story line". Along with their otLer functions, such courses disseminate concepts of nature that developed in the seventeenth centuryl~enaissancecosmolo& Usually, one starts with some pre-existing phenomenon or class of object and demonstrates how that piece of the world can be understood a s composed of smaller components, themselves made of lesser bits. The main theme of such a story is analysis. Human concerns, including those of typical students, find little place in Renaissance cosmology. The third period in which the idea of nature has undergone profound change is our own tine. Anticipations of a fourth concept of nature (historical and synthetic, rather than mechanical and analytic) can be traced to the eighteenth century; Darwin's achievement in the mid-nineteenth centurv broueht this changed outlook to eeueral attention. ~ e c l n de&lopments t nonlinear dGamics (2) and related fields (3) have solidified its intellectual basis. This emerging evolutionary cosmology does not fit naturallv into the traditional stow line of introductory science courses, framed on Renaissance assumptions. In the past few decades, advances in many fields of science (e.g., chemical evolution (4))have wnverged to generate a highly wherent story (5)of the beginning of the cos-
mos, concrescence of the earth, origin oflife, biological and human evolution, and development and spread of technolo-w and culture across the world. A new introductory chemistry wurse being developed a t Georgetown University uses a nontraditional story line to emphasize synthesis; how important objects, including ourselves, have come to be by integration of products of prior syntheses. Emphasis oncontikity between the evolution of scientific understanding and other aspects of human culture with other kinds of;latural evolutibn reinforces the notion that humans and human culture are portsof rather thanxcpamte from nature and teaches that yet further novel intepations including technological Innovation are necessary tfi). It is hoped that each student will recogruze an opportunity and perhaps even a responsibilitv creativelv in this oneoine orocess. - to oarticioate . A one-semester, three-credit; lecture course was f r s t offered in the Fall 1992 followed by a one-semester, threecredit, laboratory course during Spring 1993. Students enrolline in the courses have been ~ r i m a r i l va r t s and huma&ies majors. A textbook, probfem book,~collections of collateral readinas, and demonstrations - . exoeriments . are in various stages of completion. I t is anticipated that initial versions of these materials will be available in the Spring 1994. I n Fall 1994, a single section of the course for up to two hundred students will be offered. Graduate students will serve as recitation section instructors. Alongterm goal is to w n s t m d a wurse sequence based on the described approach that will be appropriate for first-year chemistry majors. - A
Acknowledgment This work has been suooorted under the Grant No. DUE-9150539 from the ~a'tfonalScience Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education. Literature Cited 1. Callingwaad, R.0. Thpl&a ofNUurp:Oxford University:Oxford, 1946. 2. Nicholls, G.;Rigo@ne,I. E p b r i n g Complexity:Freeman:New Yorh 1989. 3. Kauffman, Buart A. The Ori@nr of Or&r:Sd~Org~i2ation and S e k f b n in Emlulion: W o r d Univenitv: Oxford. 1993.
t o m University, 1991.
Volume 70 Number 12 December 1993
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