Throughout spring semester 2021, students in chemistry professor Tom Richmond’s Integrated Chemistry for Health Sciences course have been taking pictures of chemistry in the world around them. From using shaving cream as sunburn relief to the thermodynamics of digestion, the students have put into pictures the principles they’ve learned in class. Now one of those pictures, documenting a home chemistry experiment by pre-nursing student Ashlee Taft Nelson, is published in the magazine Chemical and Engineering News.
“The Chemistry in Pictures project helped me see that chemistry, as a whole, is so much broader than just a list of elements,” Nelson says. “It is found in every part of life that helps defines processes of growth and change.”
The photo shows two eggs that have been soaked in different solutions to illustrate how fluid moves through a membrane. An egg sans shell soaked in water will swell, since the concentration of water inside the egg is less than outside and the water moves through the membrane to balance things out. An egg soaked in corn syrup will shrink, though, since there’s more water inside the egg than in the corn syrup.
Developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chemistry in Pictures assignment helps students drawing insightful connections between the concepts they learned in class and their everyday lives and fulfill the learning objectives of a chemistry education. Publication of Nelson’s photo is, Richmond hopes, the first of many opportunities to share his students’ insights with the world.
See other examples of: blood testing, protein denaturation and other student projects.
For years, Richmond has been asking his introductory chemistry students to create and solve chemistry problems that mattered to them, in part to hone their science communication skills.
“Altering this basic format by adding a picture that they have taken with their cellphone has proven to be an effective way for students to personalize their learning and works well for a generation of students who live on social media,” he says. “It also prompts them to more directly see the relevance of chemistry in their lives whether in the kitchen, at work or at play.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chemistry in Pictures proved useful in checking in on students’ learning while access to the laboratories was limited. Richmond and veteran TA Lizabeth Cowgill realized that the assignment could do even more.
“We realized this assignment could serve as a new curriculum tool that would not only serve as an artifact regarding student understanding but could also contribute to changing a student’s attitude toward the subject of chemistry,” says Cowgill, now a graduate student in the College of Pharmacy.
Mark St. André, Associate Dean in the U’s Office of Learning Outcomes Assessment says he works with a lot of departments to tailor assignments to meet university learning objectives. Chemistry in Pictures, he says, is unique.
“It makes sense what he’s trying to do,” St. André says. “He’s trying to get them to think with a different side of their brain by representing the problem using pictures. I’m not anywhere close to a brain expert, but common sense would tell us that activating the creativity you need to build a picture is likely to help you think about the issue differently and probably increase your understanding of it.”
The Integrated Chemistry for Health Sciences course is for pre-nursing students and others heading into healthcare fields. Understanding the chemistry behind why a patient is ill is vital, says Mardie Clayton, professor of nursing.
“Basic principles of chemistry transcend human physiology and pathophysiology, enabling students to understand how the body works normally and abnormally,” she says, with the photo of fluid moving in and out of the eggs as a good example. “Understanding the movement of fluids is vital to understanding cellular function and to the management of associated diseases such as heart disease.”
Richmond says that the Chemistry in Pictures experience also teaches students to observe and interpret chemical phenomena. “The ability to communicate scientific concepts – whether to patients or peers – is certainly needed to address many critical issues in our society at large,” he says.
Cowgill gathered feedback on Chemistry in Pictures as the class progressed. The students thoroughly enjoyed the creative freedom of the assignment, she says.
One student said: “If I could change one thing about these assignments it would be to have them more frequently. Chemistry in Pictures assignments helped me apply chemistry to everyday things in my life. It forced me to have to think in a different way and ask how and why questions. It was one of the most beneficial assignments for me personally because it felt interactive even despite being online.”
Students completed five Chemistry in Pictures assignments over the course of the semester, totaling nearly 700 among the entire class. Cowgill says that while the first two assignments showed solid understanding of content, the creativity and real-life application began to shine through starting at the third assignment.
“It was like a lightbulb had gone on in all 135 students!” she says. “I started to see experimental design and treatment, adventure and risk taking, research incorporation, friends and family involvement and engagement, but most importantly, spark.” The students, she says, were starting to go above and beyond the expectations of the assignment. And the spark was never lost.
“I saw their minds challenging their own comprehension and understanding and read the excitement when, say, their proposed experiment went as planned,” she says. “These students blew me away—absolute brilliance.”
In response to an open call by Chemical and Engineering News for chemistry-related photos, Richmond sent in Nelson’s “egg-sample” image. It was published in the May 13 edition of the magazine, which is read by more than 150,000 chemistry professionals.
“Before taking Integrated Chemistry for Health Sciences, I saw chemistry as a math-based science using the list of elements found on the periodic table as variables,” Nelson says. “This project taught me to see that applications of chemistry are everywhere and to be a better observer of my environment.”
“I have been impressed with creativity and level of detail that many students exhibited in this project and suspect that their creations will be one of the lasting memories of their first exposure to chemistry,” Richmond says. “Perhaps it is not surprising that this ‘cell phone’ generation of students became adept at photographically documenting chemistry in their lives. We now often see pictures in lab reports in more advanced courses and even graduate research presentations in the department.”
Cowgill says that the assignment allows students to act as their own instructors. “It not only provides them complete creative freedom but keeps their learning unrestricted, boundless, free,” she says. “This assignment protects the most sacred component of learning: self. It is through assignments like Chemistry in Pictures where you can see raw and unedited active learning, application and educational growth tangibly.”
Tanya Vickers
Science is about preparing the next generation of innovators, explorers, and connoisseurs of curiosity. For the last 29 years the College of Science ACCESS program has been the “first step” on this journey of discovery. The ACCESS program runs from June to August and is open only to first-year students freshmen and transfers).
A cornerstone of the ACCESS experience is the opportunity for the student cohort to share their work with faculty and peers during a research poster symposium. The symposium is a powerful learning experience that mirrors professional science conferences and a career in the field, and plays a key role in the program.
When COVID-19 hit the U.S., the longstanding tradition of the Spring Research Symposium was in jeopardy. As the director of ACCESS , I was driven to find a way to continue the capstone symposium, and provide talented first-year student scientists the opportunity to showcase their research, in spite of social distancing.
With just six weeks until the event we decided to design, build, and launch a novel virtual research symposium platform. The sudden shift and short time-frame presented a real challenge, but it was also an opportunity to pursue and explore innovative approaches to current standards that, if not for CO VID-19, would have been stagnant.
It’s been six months since the Virtual Symposium, and we are still surprised by its success. The merits and results of the virtual platform challenged the notion that in-person is best. The in-person symposium normally saw about 200 guests. In contrast, the virtual symposium reeled in nearly 6,000-page views in three days and 260 guests attended the live zoom presentations.
COVID-19 upended and reshaped our everyday lives and challenged everyone to find new approaches to routine activities and novel fixes for nascent problems, much like scientists do on a regular basis.
When the on-campus student research experience was cut short in March, it didn’t mark the end of learning for the 2019-2020 ACCESS cohort. Research faculty agreed to continue mentoring remotely, which included helping the students report their research in a scientific poster they would present virtually. Unfortunately, the technology for a virtual research poster presentation did not exist.
That’s when I began the process of envisioning and creating the Virtual Symposium platform, as it’s now known. I started with identifying the critical elements of an in-person research symposium and considering how to transpose them to a virtual model. My experience teaching and using Canvas (used to deliver course content) shaped the content, and with the collaboration and support of Micah Murdock, Associate Director of Teaching and Learning Technologists (TLT ), a novel virtual research symposium was fully realized.
The platform was a lofty goal that required three defining features: a webpage for students to introduce their project, a message board for peers, guests, and mentors to pose questions, and a live Zoom presentation with question and answer.
Each student had a personal webpage that included their research poster, a 3-minute video summary of their research project, and a short personal bio. These elements provided guests with an introduction and interactions analogous to an in-person symposium.
In-person symposia can feel rushed, but the virtual platform offered the advantage of providing guests more time to preview projects on their own, before using one, or both, forum tools—the student scientist’s discussion board, or the 30-minute Zoom live session scheduled on the last day—to ask questions or comment.
Throughout this process, we wanted to build a tool with the future, as well as other disciplines and applications, in mind. We are proud to announce that the platform has already seen use for the School of Biological Sciences Virtual Retreat, ACCESS Alumni Career Panel, and a number of campus-wide projects. Most recently, the Virtual Symposium was chosen to serve as the cornerstone of the new College of Science high school outreach platform SCIENCE NO W—engaging students, presenters, and elite scientists from across the U.S. and around the world.
As a species and as scientists, we always look forward to new ideas and what can be done. In our darkest hours, we find a space for new forms of unity and growth, and can challenge ourselves to create and expand. CO VID has been undeniably difficult, but the development of new platforms and technologies, like the Virtual Research Symposium, show that sometimes, when we are forced to make changes to long held traditions, the outcome goes beyond finding an equivalent, making what we thought was “best” even better.
Special thanks to Dean Peter Trapa, ACCESS Program Manager, Samantha Shaw, and to the ACCESS students and mentors for believing in the vision of a Virtual Research Symposium.
For more information on the Virtual Symposium platform contact: tanya.vickers@utah.edu.
Spread the word, not the virus.As faculty, staff and students slowly return to campus we are asking everyone in the community to take the utmost caution to avoid the spread of COVID-19. This includes wearing face coverings and maintaining appropriate physical distancing. The university will be providing face coverings to all faculty and staff to help make this possible.
Print & Mail Services will distribute the masks directly to departments. We hope to have the masks delivered in two weeks. Check with your department staff for availability.
The University is launching a campaign to remind people of the importance of wearing face coverings and maintaining social distancing. The campaign features members of the campus community wearing appropriate face coverings with messaging about how to stay safe while on campus.
Departments will be able to place orders with Print & Mail Services for posters, A-frames, floor signs and other items with the campaign messaging. You can also get more information about staying safe on campus here.
We are all anxious for things to return to normal. However, that cannot happen until we stop the spread of COVID-19 on campus and in the greater Salt Lake City area.
We can do that by coming together and protecting ourselves and each other with just a few small changes to our normal routines.
Remember, we are all One U.
