Improvement of ND Tribal College Chemistry Instruction

描述(由申请者提供)：北达科他州的部落学院对于满足各自保留地卫生专业人员的教育需求是必不可少的。化学是几乎所有健康专业的必修课，但通常会限制进入这些领域的学生数量。对内容不熟悉可能是表现不佳的原因之一。 这个项目将设计使化学更有趣和与美洲原住民学生相关的实验。这五名部落学院的化学教师将与来自北达科他州州立大学和湖区州立学院的化学教授一起，为他们以传统植物为基础的有机和生物化学入门课程开发具有文化敏感性的讲座和实验室课程材料，包括那些用于医药的植物。他们还将在围绕水分析这一高度感兴趣的领域开设的无机化学入门课程中增加课程元素。选修这门课程的学生将接受为期三年的监控。 化学讲师和六名感兴趣的美洲原住民学生每年夏天都会在北达科他州立大学会面，利用植物和保留水域设计和测试新的实验室实验。他们将采集所有部落的长老都熟悉的植物，并雇用这些长老教他们如何识别、收获和使用这些植物。他们将在会议上展示他们的工作。 目前在北达科他州立大学任教的一名化学教授将指导暑期班，并将通过互动视频网络(IVN)向所有部落学院提供第一门有机和生物化学入门课程。接下来的两年将由部落化学教师通过IVN教授。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The tribal colleges in North Dakota are essential for meeting the needs of educating health professionals on their respective reservations. Chemistry, a required course for nearly all health professions, often limits the number of students who enter these fields. Lack of familiarity to content may be one of the reasons for poor performance. This project will design experiments that make chemistry more interesting and relevant to Native American students. The five tribal college chemistry instructors along with chemistry professors from North Dakota State University and Lake Region State College, will develop culturally sensitive lecture and laboratory curriculum materials for their Introductory Organic and Biochemistry courses based on traditional plants, including those used for medicine. They will also add curriculum elements to their Introductory Inorganic Chemistry courses built around the high interest area of water analysis. The students who take this course will be monitored for three years. The chemistry instructors and six interested Native American students will meet each summer at North Dakota State University to design and test new lab experiments using plants and reservation waters. They will gather the plants that are well-known to the elders of all of the tribes and will employ these elders to teach them how to identify, harvest, and use the plants. They will present their work at conferences. A chemistry professor who currently teaches at North Dakota State University will direct the summer institutes and will also deliver the first Introductory Organic and Biochemistry course over Interactive Video Network (IVN) to all of the tribal colleges. The following two years will be taught over IVN by a tribal chemistry instructor.