EDUCATION
Lab Curriculum Designed By Women Looks At Science In Everyday life • Program designed to retain women and minorities in science focuses on cooperation, curiosity, and teamwork « I F Y rapping up results from a W j ^ / three-year experiment, a con• • ference held last month focused on a laboratory curriculum designed by women chemistry professors from seven different colleges. Sponsored by the College-University Resource Institute (CURI), the conference, held in Washington, D.C., summarized the experiment on teaching college chemistry using the professors' curriculum, which is based on science in everyday life. CURI is a Washington, D.C.-based organization that encourages creative approaches to improving education. The conference was designed to "share, teach, demonstrate, and discuss inqui-
Jacobsen: students enjoy teamwork 24
JULY 3,1995 C&EN
ry-based chemistry," as exemplified by the curriculum. The novel curriculum was conceived seven years ago as the professors sought ways to help retain women and minorities in science. Their goal was to change the way chemistry is taught by developing a series of modules for a laboratory curriculum that would drive cooperation, curiosity, and teamwork among students. Sponsored by CURI and funded by the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund, the National Science Foundation, the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Bayer Corp. (formerly Miles Inc.), and Glaxo Corp., the program developed and pretested lab modules on topics such as soil chemistry, forensic science, light absorption, culinary chemistry, luminescence, and fragrance. The professors' approach emphasizes team projects and open-ended experiments in which students can ask questions appropriate to their level of understanding and take an active role in answering them. The students liked the experiments in which they didn't know what the answers were going to be, said CURI board of directors' chairman Julia M. Jacobsen. "And they liked the teamwork." The experiments were tested further by eight other colleges that incorporated them into their regular laboratory curricula and refined them as needed. All 31 modules are now available to interested schools. Most can be used in general chemistry or chemistry for liberal arts courses, many are suitable for organic or environmental chemistry, and a few are geared toward upper level courses. The experiments are designed for lab sections of about 20 students, although many can be adapted easily for larger sections. Experiments focus on the chemistry of familiar materials. For example, students of Susan B. Piepho, a chemistry professor at Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar, Va., learn about titration and about oxidation and reduction reactions by cook-
Tidball: women and hands-on science
ing broccoli three different ways: one group boils it, another group steams it, and a third cooks it in a microwave oven. Afterward, they analyze the different batches to find out which method of cooking is least destructive to vitamin C. In a forensic science module, her students use wet chemistry, thin-layer chromatography, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy to identify drugs. "Scientists are not literate about what's going on under their nose," said Piepho, who said she learned a great deal about the chemistry of everyday life when she was helping to develop the curriculum. "Lab modules are nice," said Karen C. Inman, a professor of chemistry at Albion College, Albion, Mich., one of the testing schools, because "you can take one experiment and see how it works for you." Chemistry professor Richard A. Blatchly of Keene State College, Keene, N.H., who tested an organic chemistry module, liked the inquiry-based curriculum lab because students think up new approaches to lab work "so it's not the
same for an instructor year after year." He said, "There's a perception that to make things better for women we have to make them less effective for men." But he contended that the format for the lab modules more closely resembles the way chemists work in the real world. Jeannene A. Ackerman, vice president of Witco Corp/s laundry products oleosurfactants group, agreed. "Open-ended inquiry-based chemistry is more in tune with what [graduates] will run into when they start looking for jobs," she said. Praising the new curriculum, she said her personal experience in doing laundry nonstop early in her career in research on fabric softeners showed her how discovery-based chemistry makes science come alive. At the Washington conference, Dreyfus Foundation Executive Director Robert L. Lichter offered a word of caution about the curriculum, however. He advised attendees to remind students that while teamwork advances effort, career advancement is decided on an individual basis. "Girls and young women respond positively to hands-on [science]," said conference speaker M. Elizabeth Peters Tidball, emeritus professor of physiology at George Washington University Medical School. "Women faculty [members] are leaders in the development of user-friendly science," she added. E. Alan Sadurski, a professor of chemistry at Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio, said the women's curriculum would be an asset in chemistry labs for pharmaceutical and engineering students. "The existing structure doesn't optimize the excitement" of chemistry. The curriculum already is the basis for a new, interdisciplinary environmental science course at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., said chemistry professor Judith A. Halstead, a codeveloper of the curriculum. "The proliferation of environmental courses is student driven," noted Halstead, who said 45 students already had signed up for the new course and as many more were on the waiting list. Teachers from more than 100 colleges attended the conference. Most went home with copies of several modules, which were available for a small fee. Information on the laboratory modules is available by phone from CURI at (202) 659-2104, fax (202) 835-1159, or by e-mail to
[email protected]. Mairin Brennan
Learn How to Solve Your Polymer Processing Problems! Register Today for This In-Depth Short Course from the American Chemical Society
Applied Rheology and Polymer Processing Sunday-Friday, September 10-15; 1995 Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Virginia
You'll Benefit Immediately from Attending This Course: • Learn how certain rheological measurements can be used to assess polymer processibility when all other standard techniques are of no value • Learn the latest techniques for making rheological measurements • Recognize the relation between polymer melt flow and structure development during processing • Understand basic concepts of non-Newtonian fluid mechanics • AND MUCH MORE! To register or to receive more information, call the ACS Continuing Education Short Courses Department at ( 8 0 0 ) 2 2 7 - 5 5 5 8 or ( 2 0 2 ) 8 7 2 - 4 5 0 8 . O r mail or FAX the coupon below. FAX: ( 2 0 2 ) 8 7 2 - 6 3 3 6 . YES! I want to learn more about the ACS Short Course, Applied Rheology and Polymer Processing, to be held September 10-15, 1995, at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Virginia. NAME TITLE ORGANIZATION ADDRESS CITY, STATE, ZIP
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JULY 3,1995 C&EN
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