Integrating industry into undergrad

By Andrea Matti

Integrating industrial practices into teaching labs is an important concept to student education. It is vital for students to see instrumentation applied in industrial settings - such as pharmaceutical companies - so they can see the progression of science and use the type of instrumentation employed at nonteaching levels.

Consequently, five new auto-titrators were installed into the General Chemistry II/Analytical Chemistry Laboratory. These instruments enable students to compare their methods of doing a titration to an instrument using the same technique. Because laboratory reports in this course are graded on accuracy, using auto-titrators gives the students a glimpse into the efficiency of analytical instruments.

In the basement hallway of the A. Paul Schaap Chemistry Building and Lecture Hall, the walls are lined with instrumentation from past decades that show how far science has come in developing new techniques. It is important to bring that same kind of inspiration into the classroom.

Exposing students to advances in science not only ignites an appreciation for the progression of science, but also exposes students to techniques not typically seen in undergraduate teaching laboratories.