An Interactive, Web-Based Materials Characterization Project for Undergraduate Education in Analytical Chemistry

最近化学教育的注意力集中在“基于问题”的学习策略的需要上，特别是在实验室环境中。 没有任何地方比在工业，政府和学术实验室担任分析化学家的年轻科学家更需要发展解决问题的技能。 这种需求已经变得如此迫切，以至于工业界最近呼吁学术界重新审视他们对化学学生的培训，特别是在定量和仪器分析实验室。 工业和政府实验室分析化学家特别关注的一个问题是，今天获得本科学位的学生对化学分析只有一个基于技术的观点，而不是将化学分析视为一个基于解决问题的综合过程。 因此，在学术界的热情，提供动手接触每一个新的仪器分析方法，是发达国家，教育的学生在综合概念的“分析过程”已经失去了。 为了在全国范围内弥补这一课程缺陷，需要更广泛地重新致力于基于培养学生批判性思维和解决问题能力的教学法。 虽然通过更加强调实践解决实验室问题的经验来实现这一目标的可取性是显而易见的，但今天许多机构，特别是小型四年制学院的现实是，他们缺乏必要的分析仪器补充，以有效解决现代现实世界中的问题，在本科分析化学实验室。 最近新电子技术的爆炸式发展，作为实验室课程中心实践部分的补充，提供了通过基于计算机的交互式体验来提高学生解决问题技能的机会。 该项目旨在利用亚利桑那大学分析课程的最新发展，以证明在万维网上生产交互式，原型，基于超媒体的材料表征项目的可行性，在该项目中，学生进行全面的分析，定性和定量方面，商业产品，设备或配方。 这种以计算机为基础的经验是为了补充更传统的实验室为基础的本科分析化学培训。这种经验将要求学生通过定义分析方法，选择所需的分析方法，设计测量实验，“收集”数据，解释数据，并根据数据得出有关化学成分和含量的结论，来化学分析常见商业产品的几个主要成分。 将开发的原型材料表征项目是基于对太阳能电子计算器组件的分析。

Much recent attention in chemical education has been focused on the need for "problem-based" learning strategies, particularly in the laboratory environment. No place is the need for the development of problem-solving skills more evident than in young scientists who function as analytical chemists in industrial, government, and academic laboratories. This need has become so acute that industry has recently called upon the academic community to reexamine their training of chemistry students, particularly in the quantitative and instrumental analysis laboratories. One particular concern expressed by industry and government laboratory analytical chemists is that students emerging with undergraduate degrees today have only a technique-based perspective on chemical analysis instead of viewing chemical analysis as an integrated process based on problem solving. Thus, in academia's zeal to provide hands-on exposure to every new instrumental analysis method that is developed, education of students in the integrated concept of the "analytical process" has been lost. To remedy this curricular deficiency nationwide necessitates a broader recommitment to a pedagogy based on the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills in our students. While the desirability of achieving this goal through increased emphasis on hands-on laboratory problem-solving experiences is obvious, the reality for many institutions today, particularly small four-year colleges, is that they lack the necessary complement of analytical instrumentation for effective solution of modern real-world problems in their undergraduate analytical chemistry laboratories. The recent explosion in new electronic technology affords, as a supplement to the central hands-on component of the laboratory curriculum, the opportunity to enhance the problem solving skills of students through interactive computer-based experiences. This project is designed to take advantage of recent developments in the analytical curriculum at the Unive rsity of Arizona to demonstrate the feasibility of production of an interactive, prototype, hypermedia-based Materials Characterization Project on the World Wide Web in which the student undertakes a comprehensive analysis, with both qualitative and quantitative aspects, of a commercial product, device, or formulation. This computer-based experience is intended as a supplement to the more conventional laboratory-based training in undergraduate analytical chemistry. This experience will require the student to chemically analyze several major components of a common commercial product by defining the analysis approach, selecting the analysis method(s) required, designing the measurement experiments, "collecting" the data, interpreting the data, and arriving at conclusions about chemical composition and content based on the data. The prototype Materials Characterization Project to be developed is based on analysis of the components of a solar electronic calculator.