Labs Open Doors to Undergrads

Labs Open Doors to Undergrads

BY LIA UNRAU
Rice News Staff
April 29, 1999

Exploration of buckyballs and other new carbon forms was once limited to research
bound for scientific publication.

But in new Rice chemistry teaching labs, undergraduates are getting a chance
to create and chemically poke and prod fullerenes and buckyballs, the unique
compounds that won Rice chemists the 1996 Nobel Prize.

With the help of an outside grant–and thanks to a total restructuring of the
undergraduate chemistry laboratory curriculum–Rice undergraduates are exploring
current research fields using the most modern tools.

"It’s not the old cookbook type of lab experience," said Ken Whitmire,
professor of chemistry and project director.

The new fullerene chemistry lab module is part of a comprehensive new curriculum
for chemistry laboratories, called the Advanced Modular Laboratory Curriculum.

The system uses a project-oriented format to give students "discovery-type"
experiences in the lab and teaches them how to use state-of-the-art lab equipment.

"We don’t tell them what is going to happen with their experiments,"
Whitmire said, "we give them independence and more latitude and let them
learn from mistakes."

The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation awarded Rice a $35,000 grant to develop
the first advanced module of the program, focused on fullerene chemistry. University
matching funds have allowed the chemistry department to develop additional modules,
including introductory labs, introduced last fall, and additional advanced labs.

"We are excited about the possibilities of developing this whole experiment,"
said Graham Glass, chair and professor of chemistry. "Breaking the labs
into modules allows for continual upgrading and development, so we can always
stay abreast of current research activities."

Said Bruce Weisman, professor of chemistry, "We’re trying to modernize
a very traditional chemistry curriculum and to generate a curriculum that has
more relevance to the way modern research is done."

The fullerene lab integrates synthetic, analytical and physical chemistry and
makes use of state-of-the-art instrumentation, much of which was provided by
the Dreyfus Foundation grant.

"We’ve broken down the formal barriers between different types of chemistry
and put all components in one lab," said Lon Wilson, professor of chemistry.

Students synthesize, purify and characterize fullerenes by conventional methods
and then move on to advanced measurements. In addition to using different types
of spectroscopy to analyze the fullerenes they generate, students study electrochemistry
using a new electrochemical analyzer and monitor the excited states of fullerenes
with a custom-built laser apparatus.

"These measurements would have represented the forefront of research results
just a few years ago," Weisman noted. "And some of the results students
get in this lab are of higher quality than those commonly published in the current
scientific literature."

Lovett senior Orson Sydora said the fullerene lab is the best lab he has had
at Rice. "We’re doing publishable, quality work&emdash;what you would
do in grad school," he said. "This technology is not taught in any
other undergraduate-level class, and it’s something you don’t get at other universities."

The new fullerene lab is instructional, but the professors are already thinking
about a follow-up module in which students would make new derivations of fullerenes
and characterize them, constituting new research contributions.

What students need out of a lab experience has changed, Whitmire said.

"It’s impossible to learn every technology nowadays," he said. "Research
is more specialized, more complicated."

The new curriculum reflects more closely what happens in the research world
by combining different disciplines. With a variety of seven-week modules, it
also offers students more flexibility in their lab choices.

"The largest improvement for students is probably that they are able to
tailor-make their own labs according to their goals and interests," Wilson
said. A faculty committee works with students in selecting modules, making sure
they get a balance and breadth of experience.

The curriculum also gives faculty an opportunity to do something related to
their own specialties.

Additional modules are currently being developed and old labs are gradually
being restructured into the new modules.

The department is introducing its first computational modeling lab in theoretical
chemistry and a lithographic chemistry module, and highly specialized modules
designed to teach techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
and electron microscopy are also in the works.