ACT

Assignment: Chemical Technology

A series of three projects with this title, centered at Southeast Community College (SCC) in Lincoln, Nebraska, were funded by the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education program and the Dupont Aid to Education program, 1995 - 2002. The Principal Investigator was John Kenkel, chemistry instructor in the Laboratory Science Technology program at SCC.

These projects were curriculum and materials development projects intended primarily for 2-year chemical technology training programs found in the vocational/technical divisions of community colleges.

The curriculum created is reflected in several textbooks and a lab manual published by CRC Press/Lewis publishers, Inc., listed below. Additional materials created are also listed below.

1. A textbook entitled Chemistry: An Industry-Based Introduction with CD-ROM. This textbook is intended for the first-year chemistry course for these programs, or any other introductory chemistry course for which the instructor wishes to incorporate workplace connections for his/her students. The authors are John Kenkel, Paul Kelter, and David Hage.

2. A CD-ROM, affectionately known as the IONS CD, packaged with the above textbook. This CD serves as a study guide for the students, but also introduces an exciting new optional accessory for the course. This accessory consists of industrial scenarios related to the topics covered in the text which the students must solve by progressing from screen to screen and reading text and examining data presented there. It is called the IONS CD because students play-act as employees of a consulting firm dubbed the Innovative Options and New Solutions (or IONS) corporation. Humor is injected with the fictional names of client companies and IONS consultants. This CD was created by Paul Kelter and his students while at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.

3. A lab manual entitled Chemistry: An Industry-Based Laboratory Manual. This lab manual also utilizes the IONS concept outlined in #2 above and is intended for the laboratory course that accompanies the first-year course. Students encounter IONS scenarios as on the CD, but must perform laboratory work to solve the client problem. This manual includes a comprehensive safety manual as well as several experiments expressly designed as "new employee orientation" experiments intended to be performed by new students prior to their performing experiments that are the client projects. John Kenkel is the author.

4. A textbook entitled A Primer on Quality in the Analytical Laboratory. This textbook is a short (80 pages) primer covering such topics as quality assurance, statistics, and Good Laboratory Practices (GLP). This book is intended for a short course on these topics, or as a supplement to analytical chemistry courses found in the second year of training. John Kenkel is the author.

5. The third ediiton of John Kenkel's textbook entitled Analytical Chemistry For Technicians. The first and second editions of this book were published in 1988 and 1994 respectively. The grant funds were used to completely re-write most sections of the book with attention given to the voluntary industry standards for chemical technology. Mr. Kenkel also expanded his knowledge base of the topics in the book by touring industrial laboratories and completing a number of ACS and Pittcon short courses before and during the writing period. Special features include over 50 "workplace scenes" that provide examples of real-world scenarios, with photographs, to support the material in the text. The book also has over 60 lab experiments for instructors to choose for his/her laboratory classes.

6. A CATIONS CD-ROM packaged with the above textbook. CATIONS represents a wholly owned subsidiary of the IONS Corporation as discussed in Item #2 above, and includes workplace scenarios related especially to analytical chemistry. The format is the same as on the CD mentioned in Item #2. This CD was created by Paul Kelter and his students at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and Bill McLaughlin and students at the University of Nebraska.

7. A LIMS CD-ROM available through the publisher to colleges that adopt the textbook. It is also available from its developer, Kirk Hunter at Texas State Technical College in Waco, Texas. This CD is intended to simulate the LIMS systems in use in industrial laboratories and is to be used in conjunction the experiments in the analytical chemistry courses in the chemical technology programs.