FOR MORE INFORMATION:
DR. GRAEME WYLLIE, associate professor, Chemistry; Concordia Science Academy coordinator
(218) 299-4956
AMY KELLY, College Communications and Media Relations director
(218) 299-3642
CENTENNIAL LECTURE ON NEW COURSE-BASED ACTIVITIES
FOR CHEMISTRY EDUCATION
Dr. Graeme Wyllie, associate professor of chemistry at Concordia, and student co-researchers Sofia Palme ’21 and Andrew H. Johnson ’20, will present a Centennial Scholars Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 13, in Morrie Jones Conference Center A-B, Knutson Campus Center. The lecture, “Improving Student Understanding of Polarity in the General Chemistry Laboratory: New Chromatographic Studies Using Commercial Food Dyes and Candies,” is free and open to the public.
One of the challenges in chemical education research is to create new materials which embrace the required complex topic and at the same time engage students through utilization of real word examples. In the chemistry department they’re working on improving student understanding of polarity and chromatography in the general chemistry lab through a series of new course-based activities. The project used commercially available colored materials, such as marker pens and food dyes, which possess different polarities. Their colorful nature and minimal hazardous waste generation make them ideal as the basis for these new, engaging labs. The research initially looked at developing and optimizing new pedagogy for the general chemistry teaching lab that was then successfully implemented in the fall of 2019. The talk will share details of not only the experiments, but also results from the implementation and how this is being refined for future use.
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