Our Quantitative Analysis laboratory used to be a traditional teaching laboratory, where students followed a set of instructions to carry out instrumental analysis and then analyzed the results. This approach is valuable since students learned to follow written instructions. Additionally, since usually, we make up the samples, it makes it easier to evaluate accuracy and precision and therefore student performance. That is a common approach to most of the undergraduate laboratories: students follow instructions and deliver expected results, reducing the risk of not getting the proper data or problems with the experiment. However, that approach limits the opportunities to create, solve problems, make decisions based on data and apply what students learn in the lectures. Therefore, to promote scientific reading, creativity, problem solving and better connection with the lecture, I incorporated a research group project to replace traditional laboratory experiments. With this approach, students decide what to analyze, which sampling protocol and treatment to use, and which procedures to follow. They also must include quality-control tests and write up the optimized procedure. To plan the experiments, students read scientific papers, discuss the procedures reported, and use the figures of merit to choose the proper procedures or instruments to use. To finish the course, students prepare a poster showing their work and present it in a scientific meeting. During these years, student’s projects have dealt with the analysis of Puerto Rican coffee, honey, artisanal beers, campus soil and even the optimization of an analytical method. This presentation will show how this approach has changed through the years, the challenges and benefits of this methodology along with some of the student’s comments.

Transforming a traditional quantitative laboratory into a research-focused analytical laboratory

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.