Symbiotic Relations between ACS Local Sections and Student

Chapter 3

Downloaded by UNIV OF IDAHO on December 12, 2016 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 5, 2016 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2016-1230.ch003

Symbiotic Relations between ACS Local Sections and Student Member Chapters - A Case Study Micheal Fultz* and Amanda Smith Department of Chemistry, West Virginia State University, Institute, West Virginia 25112 *E-mail: [email protected]

One of the greatest challenges that both student groups and local section leaders have is engaging the other group. The West Virginia State University Student Members of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Kanawha Valley section of the ACS have been doing this successfully for the last 5 years. This cooperation includes grants, social activities, competitions, and other programs. The activities mentioned in this paper have been used to promote professional development of students, as well as community service oppurtunities for both the local section and student members. These activities would not have been possible without cooperation. We would like to share our successes with you and encourage you to continue finding new ways to engage partner organizations.

Introduction For 15 years I have been involved with Student Members of the American Chemical Society at three separate universities and three separate sections in different states. Even though the groups have been in different areas, the greatest challenge we face is a constant. The challenge, to increase interaction with the student group and the section at the universities, colleges, and high schools is born from the necessity of having to interact to best serve both our student and local section members. This interaction needs to go in both directions, so the students need to be willing to increase their interaction with the local section as well. To © 2016 American Chemical Society Mio and Benvenuto; Building and Maintaining Award-Winning ACS Student Member Chapters Volume 2: Specific Program Areas ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.


promote this cooperation, we have developed several activities that thrive because of our interactions with each other. Our belief is that from grants to seminars, outreach and service programs always work best when we work together. To understand the interactions between the Kanawha Valley section (KVS) and our student group it is best to understand a little about the make-up of the two groups. The KVS is an organization with roughly 145 members. Of these 145 members, 40% of them have been involved for less than 4 years and another 35% have been involved in the American Chemical Society for more than 50 years. The section has three universities offering BS degrees in Chemistry with three Student ACS Member organizations. The Kanawha Valley (often referred to as “The Chemical Valley”) (1) was the home of Union Carbide and has production facilities for Dow and DuPont as well as several smaller chemical plants. After a brief hiatus, the West Virginia State University Student Members of the American Chemical Society was reinstituted seven years ago with six student members. Since that time, we have grown to 24 current members spanning all areas of STEM fields at WVSU. Our membership includes nonresidential and nontraditional students, many with designs on professional school. Our focus is mainly on the desire to teach science (with an emphasis on chemistry) to the community and prepare for professional school. We are fortunate the KVS is able to help accomplish these goals and is responsive to the student group needs. One of the best ways to promote this interaction is to have someone who can help share the needs of one organization with the other. As the faculty adviser for the WVSU ACS chapter for the last seven years while also serving as either Local section Chair, or Chair elect, for the last five years, I fill that role. I am at all the meetings for both groups and try to share the needs for volunteers and resources of both groups. Due to the small size of the membership of both the local section and student group, finances are usually a challenge. West Virginia is one of the most economically disadvantaged states in the country, so the opportunities for public service and education are always present, but, with increased opportunity comes a need for more resources. The chief source of funding for the KVS is the once a year ACS allotment. The WVSU student group receives some financial support from the WVSU Department of Chemistry, from awarded submissions of ACS grants (both travel and community interaction), and from holding fundraisers. As the faculty adviser at WVSU, I help by promoting the the interactions the student group with the local section, helping the students organize activities, and providing admintrative support with the university. This has lead to WVSU, KVS, and some local chemical companies helping the students with financial needs such as traveling to the National ACS meetings to make presentations and receive the chapter rating awards.

Matching Grant Focus To try to meet the needs of the community, the KVS has prepared and submitted an Innovative Projects Grant (IPG) (2) every year for at the last 16 Mio and Benvenuto; Building and Maintaining Award-Winning ACS Student Member Chapters Volume 2: Specific Program Areas ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.


consecutive six years. Each of these grants can be up to $3,000 of unmatched funding for the project. Each of the last three years, the student members have been involved in deciding what the section outreach focus will be and then carrying out the projects described in the proposals. This partnership continues both ways as student members have the opportunity to annually submit a Community Interaction grant (CIG) (3) as well. The community interaction grant can be up to $500 but must be matched dollar for dollar from an outside source. An example of this synergistic activity can be displayed by the past two awards that were funded (2014 CIG “Water Sustainability and Societal Needs” with the 2014 local section award “Monitoring Water Chemistry throughout the Kanawha Valley” with 2015 focus for the CIG “Hygiene and Health Effects” and the IPG award titled “Instruments of Hygiene and Education.”) The local section made the initial offer many years ago to work with the student groups in outreach. They listened to how the students were trying to engage the local community in science and were frustrated with the lack of interaction they had with the participants at these events. The local section purchased a set of classroom clickers to overcome this challenge. These clickers are housed at two of the universities and used by the groups to engage the participants at our local events. The questions may range from content knowledge to overall impressions of the industry and are used to determine how we can improve our activities in the future. Local chemistry teachers have reached out to the section and inquired about borrowing these for their classroom since they cannot afford a set or would like to try it with their teaching style before they try to purchase a set through the school. This has helped both the local section and the students meet and engage new schools even today.

Matching National Themes Our first attempt at combining the students Community Interaction Grants and the local section Innovative Projects Grant was the 2013-2014 academic year. That year the theme for National Chemistry Week was “Energy – Now and Forever! (4)” The local section’s IPG grant was a proposal to purchase equipment to teach about green energy. That material is still being used in outreach today by both the local section and the student groups. The student group’s proposal was written for outreach activities at regional elementary schools but was intentionally a little vague in the hopes the partnership with the local section would work, so we could have some flexibility in what we can do. We included money to promote chemistry careers and activities but did not want to get boxed in to doing something where we depended on the IPG in case it was not funded. Fortunately, we were successful with both grants funded, and the partnership began. The students were able to borrow the energy equipment purchased on the IPG from the local section in our trips to the local section. We as a student group focused our efforts on green energy sources pulling in professionals who have a desire and time to mentor the undergraduates in how to best communicate the chemical information they know to the general population. This partnership on energy continues to grow and thrive today and is best displayed by our most recent science day at a local elementary 17

Mio and Benvenuto; Building and Maintaining Award-Winning ACS Student Member Chapters Volume 2: Specific Program Areas ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.

school when our section chair came to join us and talk about electricity and energy collected through solar cells. With each new grant funded and with each new group of students affected, the success of this partnership grows.


Facing Local Challenges By responding to the challenges of our local community both the local section and the student group had our outreach focus decided for us early for the 2014-2015 academic year. In January 2014 thousands of gallons of crude 4-methyl cyclohexane methanol (MCHM) spilled into the Elk River in Charleston (5). This contaminated the water supply for roughly 300,000 people causing mass confusion and panic in the general population. As Chemistry Ambassadors we wanted to help calm their fears and help them understand what makes water so unique and vital for life. Three months after the spill two students lead the efforts to prepare a grant to secure funding for water science boxes for local elementary school classrooms. These boxes included laboratory activities and directions using the supplies within the boxes to teach children about the special properties of water. Properties of surface tension, density, polarity among other properties were examined with background reading and references needed to understand the material included in the box. Fifty of these boxes were prepared and distributed throughout the region and with many still in use today since the teachers can get replacement supplies from the local hardware or grocery store. Using the already described partnership the local section prepared and submitted a grant to purchase a Vernier water quality testing kit (6). The water quality testing kits were used to test for ions, turbidity, pH, temperature among other things. Some of these results were collected by local children who got a chance to see how water is tested and hear what these readings mean. Additionally several middle and high school teachers have used the probes in the classroom to teach chemistry and environmental science courses for the water chapters of the curriculum. As shown in Figure 1, WVSU ACS student members were able to use the instrumentation and technical expertise of the professional section to help with these projects in part due to the concerted effort to partner the grant proposals and $3,400 in grant money with the students spending $400 in match money to purchase the supplies for the water activities for the academic year. This is an incredible investment in our community and education that allowed both groups to expand the activities through partnership instead of duplicating efforts or working in silos. For the 2015-2016 academic year, the students decided they would like to have a focus on the chemistry of hygiene. This focus includes soaps, handwashing, and dental hygiene. They prepared a Community Interaction Grant, that was was funded which provided supply money. Some of the supplies included bottles of GloGermTM, black lights, tooth brushes, cleaners, soaps, and other supplies. However, this had only a limited scope of what we could do in the classroom due to limited available equipment. Knowing this would be a problem, the students asked for help from the local section. Using the IPG opportunity the local section applied for a dissecting microscope that could be used to display the effects that 18 Mio and Benvenuto; Building and Maintaining Award-Winning ACS Student Member Chapters Volume 2: Specific Program Areas ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.


antibacterial soaps can have on the microorganisms on our hands and our food. We were able to grow the bacteria and fungus on agar plates then show the effects of different cleaning solutions on the plates then project on computer screens in public areas that lack a projector (Figure 2). This has piqued the interest of students in the K-12 school system, as well as people in the community. The combined resources of these two grants has allowed us to purchase over $2,500 worth of supplies and equipment for only $250 in local resources and help to expand the volunteer labor pool since both the local section and the student group were pursuing a similar theme for the academic year. The microscope has also been used to teach about crystals and a number of other materials in outreach activities. The partnership on the grants has significantly increased the cooperation in chemistry related outreach activities. Previously the two groups rarely worked together, and it was like two independent groups working in silos with each doing their separate service activities. This year we have been able to get help from the KVS to provide volunteers who would be willing to do activities with school aged children, so we as a student group did not have to find all the manpower to staff all of the booths. These additional volunteers with years of experience working in the laboratories throughout the region has increased the technical abilities of the outings thus exposing the undergraduate and K-12 students to careers and wisdom that had never been a possibility before. The pairing has allowed us to reach more schools and often with a larger footprint and has an added benefits that we never previously thought about. Since our students are working with many industry professionals, some have received job opportunities or internship positions at these local companies.

Figure 1. WVSU ACS Student member working to collect data on water quality on the Kanawha River using equipment purchased using the KVS IPG award.

19 Mio and Benvenuto; Building and Maintaining Award-Winning ACS Student Member Chapters Volume 2: Specific Program Areas ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.


Figure 2. Student ACS member, Aaron, talking about the chemistry of hygiene at the Putnam County Science Fair using equipment purchased in collaboration with the local section.

Monthly Seminars Additional areas of interaction can be seen in our seminars. In the distant past, the local section would host our monthly meetings at local steak houses. This was not conducive to encouraging student participation at these meetings. We have three universities in our immediate region with entirely different student populations and needs. As a local section, we decided to rotate the monthly meeting schedule through the three universities on a semester basis so each schools would host one meeting a semester. This has increased the student participation rate in these meetings from all three student groups. In an attempt to increase the exposure, we invited the visiting speaker to provide a second seminar at one of the other universities during the lunch hour. This has increased the exposure of chemistry to hundreds of additional students over the last four years. We hope that we have promoted chemistry, professional school, and community service to all of these students looking to change their lives for better through education and science. In an attempt to engage the older members with the student members, there have also been seminars about the history of chemistry. Experienced members have spoken to the younger members, sometime formally, sometimes not, about the challenges that they faced in the days before computers and microelectronics. They enlighten younger section members with stories of trying to develop chemical processes, identify compounds, or just integrate gas chromatography and NMR peaks without the modern tools. These seminars help the younger students to appreciate the creative and problem solving abilities that scientist have to have while keeping some of our experience members engaged in the activities of the local section and mentoring the professional of tomorrow. In an effort to make the seminars more applicable to the students we a, as a local section, try to find professional and/or graduate schools whose faculty are willing to come in the fall semester and give a research talk and explain the benefits of attending their schools. These schools typically see the seminars as a recruiting trip, so we are able to expose students to professionals in the field for free or at significantly reduced costs. This partnership with the local section 20


has allowed us to host more speakers and people we ordinarily would not have considered as part of our typical speaker series program due to cost and distance. Duplicating presentations with the student groups where the speaker gets to speak at two schools has increased the exposure of the visiting faculty technical expertise while enabling them to talk to two schools for the cost of one.


Social Activities In an effort to get the student groups within the local section to communicate with each other, the local section group hosts a fall picnic/kickball tournament. The professional members of the organization are welcome to attend the tournament, and many do. It is a great opportunity for the active students at each of the universities to come together and learn the strengths and weaknesses of the other chapters in an informal setting, thereby helping each other grow though a non-stressful environment. At these tournaments, it is not uncommon for students to speak to each other about classes and instrumentation available at their respective schools. Many bond over their graduate or professional school preparation. These conversations are strictly due to the local section willingness to host a special event and supply the food to bring these students together. Feeding hungry students is always a great motivation to get them to work together.

Hosting Academic Competitions It may sound like the benefits flow heavily in favor of the student groups up to this point, but the students have a responsibility to the local section as well. The Chemistry Olympiad is the biggest outreach the local section does for the community. It consumes over a third of the annual budget of the section with the testing and the awards banquet hosted every May. However, local sections faced many challenges in not only getting schools to take the test by arranging field trips to universities for proctoring, but also, due to state budget cuts and teachers unwilling to lose instruction time with the students. These problems meant that the success and growth of the Olympiad was severely lacking. All attempts to remedy the situation failed at first because of the logistical and pedagogical nightmare created by taking students from their schools to a university to be proctored en mass, or secondly because it is required that at least two professional ACS members to travel to schools, so prevent any concerns about test security or claims about a member’s behavior. With a small section this numerical limitation prevented us from the ideal situation, proctoring the test at all the schools, and, therefore hurt the ability to increase the number of schools who would be able to take the test. This problem was solved through the assistance of our student members. We were able to pair a student with a local professional to travel to the schools to proctor the test onsite, essentially freeing up an individual and doubling the number of schools that could be reached. Proctoring the tests at the schools has helped science teachers participate in the Chemistry Olympiad as they no longer need to 21



find funding for a field trip or pull the students out other classes. This increased the school participation rate by 50% over three years. Additional University support for the Chemistry Olympiad came in the form of scholarships. We were able to convince the three local universities to offer a combined $200,000 in scholarships to the top achieving students on this exam. This was done in order to help grow the student population in science departments at these local institutions with quality, hardworking students. These scholarship offers are made at the local sections annual awards banquet in May when the 50 and 60 year members are recognized. This is just one more event where we work to engage the experienced chemist with those who are just beginning their academic and professional careers. Although in-school testing has increased, the benefits of taking the test at a local university has not been overlooked. Each year the National Chemistry Olympiad (7) tests are proctored at one of the universities with the help of the student group to set up and clean up both the written and lab test site. They take the high school participants of the exam out for lunch and talk to them about professional/graduate school preparation. Participates see this experience as both the chance to meet someone who is working in the field while also having a relaxing lunch in the middle of the exam. While that is all true, what they do not realize is that it is also an effective method keeping track of high school students on a college campus. Another major activity that is done with professional support is the “You be the Chemist Challenge” (8). In 2014 Dow West Virginia started to sponsor the “You be the Chemist Challenge” in West Virginia and partnered with WVSU to act as the host site for the oral portion of the competition. This collaborative project between industry professionals and the student groups has seen the program expand in just its second year. The industry members form Dow cannot possibly work full time and do all of the proctoring, traveling, and grading that it takes to interact with hundreds of middle school children throughout the region. We have engaged senior student members that have flexible schedules and encouraged them to get involved in helping to proctor the test so not as many professional members have to travel to the schools. In the first year the state of West Virginia had six schools and a little more than 450 students accept the challenge; this was in part due to the availability of the proctors, interest from the schools, and the learning curve of trying to implement a new program. With the help of the senior students, we have grown the competition to 11 schools taking the test. When trying to host an event like the “You be the Chemist Challenge” (Figure 3) oral competition there are a lot of factors in play. To act as the moderators for the Challenge, we recruit industry professionals to act as moderators. Before they moderate the round they clearly articulate what they in their career to the students and general public. The local professionals explain their work to the students, have lunch with both the middle school and undergraduate students, and act as the chemistry ambassadors for the industry. These individuals are typically the face of the program but not necessarily the ones who work hardest working preparing for the Challenge. Student members arrive early to help the professional members and the test participants find the rooms and show them around campus. These are the people who help set up the rooms, clean up, and act as runners during the 22



competition. The student members also get a chance to set out displays promoting green chemistry and their community interaction grants often using the equipment purchased with the help of the local section awards as mentioned before.

Figure 3. The 2015 “You be the Chemist Challenge”

Conclusions These are some of the best successes that we have had trying to pair the local section to the student groups. It works for us due to our size and the passion and necessity that we have to try to make it work for us. If you have other ways, policies, activities that get the students and professionals together please share those ideas in letters to the editors, the National or regional ACS meetings, or mentoring/assisting neighboring groups or sections. Science is about collaboration; science requires experimentation and communication - in education we experiment with ideas. We try to use the ideas we find at the ACS Sci-Mix chapter posters that impressed us, as well as be creative in the ways we can combine the local section and student groups. To make our society great share the best ideas and serve more students through that work.

References 1.

2.

3.

4.

National Geographic. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/ 140116-chemical-valley-west-virginia-chemical-spill-coal/ (accessed July 8, 2016). ACS Local Section Innovative Project Grant Program. https://www.acs.org/ content/acs/en/funding-and-awards/grants/acscommunity/lsinnovativegrant. html (accessed July 8, 2016). ACS Community Interaction Grant. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/ funding-and-awards/grants/acscommunity/studentaffiliatechaptergrants/ communityinteraction.html (accessed July 8, 2016). ACS National Chemistry Week 2013. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/ education/outreach/ncw/past/ncw-2013.html (accessed July 8, 2016). 23


5. 6. 7.


8.

Charleston Gazette-Mail. http://www.wvgazettemail.com/article/20140710/ GZ01/140719966/149 accessed July 8, 2016). Vernier Software & Technology. http://www.vernier.com/products/ packages/water-quality-tests/ (accessed July 8, 2016). ACS U. S. National Chemistry Olympiad. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/ en/education/students/highschool/olympiad.html (accessed July 8, 2016). Chemical Education Foundation. http://www.chemed.org/programs/ challenge/ (accessed July 8, 2016).

24 Mio and Benvenuto; Building and Maintaining Award-Winning ACS Student Member Chapters Volume 2: Specific Program Areas ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.

Symbiotic Relations between ACS Local Sections and Student

Recommend Documents