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

最近对化学教育的关注主要集中在需要“基于问题”的学习策略上，特别是在实验室环境中。没有比在工业、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了。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。工业和政府实验室的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种基于技术的观点，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，在学术界热衷于提供每一种新的工具分析方法的实践机会时，对学生的“分析过程”综合概念的教育已经丢失。要在全国范围内弥补这一课程缺陷，就需要更广泛地重新致力于一种基于培养学生批判性思维和解决问题能力的教学法。虽然通过增加对动手解决实验室问题的经验的重视来实现这一目标的愿望是显而易见的，但对于今天的许多机构，特别是小型的四年制学院来说，现实是他们缺乏必要的分析仪器来有效地解决本科分析化学实验室中的现代现实问题。最近新电子技术的爆炸式发展，作为实验室课程中核心动手部分的补充，提供了通过交互式计算机体验提高学生解决问题能力的机会。本项目旨在利用亚利桑那大学分析课程的最新发展，展示在万维网上制作一个交互式的、原型的、基于超媒体的材料表征项目的可行性，在这个项目中，学生将对商业产品、设备或配方进行定性和定量的全面分析。这种以计算机为基础的经验旨在作为传统的以实验室为基础的本科分析化学训练的补充。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，并根据数据得出关于化学成分和含量的结论，对常见商业产品的几种主要成分进行化学分析。即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.