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Virtual Analytical Chemistry Laboratories?
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he use of online or “distance” learning technology at the undergraduate level is an established phenomenon. Programs are offered by both “real” campuses and by others that more resemble electronic entities. In terms of numbers of students, the global activity is enormous. Educational principles for successful distance learning have become a subject of scholarly discourse. Although there are numerous uncertainties about the efficacy of higher learning online, on the whole its progress must be applauded. Access to online education— in our era of rising costs of physically attending a good college—is a tremendously important avenue for those with motivation (and little cash) to better themselves. Offering online science education involves the severe challenge that doing science involves laboratory experiments. Nonetheless, under labels of “virtual laboratories”, some programs have emerged at the high-school level. A recent New York Times article (Oct 20, 2006) noted a program that claimed 150,000 high-school-student participants. These numbers prompted a debate within the College Board (a prominent U.S. pre-college testing organization) about whether to recognize advanced placement college credits for high-school courses lacking a physical laboratory experience. Science laboratories are expensive even at the high-school level, and there is a national shortage of science teachers, so a move by some high schools to offer a virtual laboratory experience instead is unsurprising. Many will argue that it is a second-class experience, but if it is that or nothing—and if some students are captured by a passion for further (nonvirtual) college study in science through use of a computer screen— then they benefit and so does society. At the college level, virtual laboratory chemistry learning is just emerging. I studied some websites that had interesting approaches, but the depth and scope of the actual experiments described were limited relative to the desired undergraduate experience. Many “experiments” were just paper homework problems. While college-level virtual-laboratory chemistry learning is still an evolving idea, I anticipate that it will gain limited acceptance in the direction it appears to be going, which is to replace the physical laboratory experience. There are sound arguments that physical manipulations of
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chemicals and glassware and instruments have to be experienced to be learned. Additionally, real laboratory work involves learning to multitask, because in most laboratory settings, one must typically organize multiple physical tasks that are disparate but heading in a common direction. And there is the credibility of the student’s training to an employer; would you hire an undergraduate chemist who had no physical experience in the laboratory? (Or select a physician for your surgery who had learned the skills of cutting on a computer screen?) I believe that, in fact, there is a lot of room for virtual chemistry laboratories that are done in tandem—concurrently on a real campus—with study in real laboratories, provided that one chooses virtual experiences that enhance (rather than seek to replace) a laboratory’s core physical experiences. For example, study of analytical instruments by digital visuals of how they work would acquaint students with a much wider range of equipment—and quality thereof—than is normally available to the chemistry senior in an instrumental analysis lab. U.S. instrument vendors sometimes provide such visual instructions. How about a virtual experiment illustrating a single-cell analysis? Computer-based instruction on how to keep a good laboratory notebook would be appreciated by future industrial employers. Virtual learning about topics that academic faculty are unskilled in—such as process analysis— would add to the undergraduate’s employment potential. These could supplement what we do now, at relatively little expenditure of real laboratory time, and be more worthwhile than the illustrations of color-forming reactions that are found on current virtual-laboratory websites. In any sophisticated subject, while a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, it is a lot better than none at all. Virtual laboratory experiences should not be rejected out of hand, but massaged for how they can enhance—not replace—existing nonvirtual education.
© 2007 AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
