A recent collaboration between a local vineyard and the MWSU Chemistry Department has fostered new opportunities for applied learning in real world problems in General Chemistry 2 as well as other courses. This presentation focuses the development and current progress with a new second semester general chemistry laboratory project that requires students to perform field sampling, extensive sample preparation, and multiple analyses on vegetation from the vineyard.  A central focus of the project is the determination of the calcium content in grape leaves.  Students must perform dry ashing of the leaves, dissolve the ash in acid, and then measure the calcium content in the extract using both an instrumental technique (atomic absorption) and a wet chemical technique (EDTA titration).  This component of the project brings together important techniques such as pipetting, instrumental calibration, titration, and solution stoichiometry in order to arrive at the desired quantity, mass percent of calcium in grape leaves.  In addition, students must function well within their groups and divide labor effectively in order to complete the numerous tasks that are expected of them.  The conclusion of the project is a discussion of the pros and cons of each experimental technique.  A survey of student attitudes in response to this project was distributed; their results will also be presented.

Development of an applied learning general chemistry project at the vineyard

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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