1. Professional Development for High School Chemistry Teachers.
Misheck Rusere 2698574. 1348 Bachelor of Biomolecular Science Majoring Medicinal Chemistry, Griffith university, Brisbane, Queensland, 4111
Abstract
Griffith university is ranked as one of the top 5% universities worldwide and we continue to strive to increase our external relations and increase enrolment figures. The School of Biomolecular
and Physical Sciences(BPS) decided to approach this goal by providing professional development for high school chemistry teachers. Professional development programs have been aimed to
develop new skills, knowledge and approaches in order to perform well in their roles, however too often teachers say that the professional development they receive provides limited application
to their everyday world of teaching and learning so to address this issue, a student laboratory manual for grades 10 – 12 and a staff/demonstrators handbook containing a range of chemistry
laboratory activities covering forensic, environmental, pharmaceutical and nutritional aspects was produced as part of my IAP project so as to show high school students a mixture of new
research, fundamental chemical principles and to highlight the role of chemistry in everyday life as well as industrial applications and make them consider science as their choice field of study.
HPLC
The instrument : Waters isocratic HPLC with breeze 2
software.
High performance liquid chromatography is now one of
the most powerful tools in analytical chemistry used to
separate, identify, and quantitate the compounds that
are present in any sample that can be dissolved in a
liquid. In this activity we analysed samples of homebrand
aspirin and Aspirin samples made by first year students,
dissolved in methanol.
The output is recorded as a series of peaks - each one
representing a compound in the mixture passing through
the detector and absorbing UV light and also a table of
the retention times and the areas which can be used to
help to identify and quantify the compounds present as
shown below, a chromatogram of a homebrand aspirin
tablet analysed on the PD day.
Project Background and Work Done
Chemistry compared to other fields of study has a reputation for being a complicated and boring science, an undeserved reputation considering things like fireworks and fake snow are based
on chemistry. There is a great need to for people to understand chemistry better because of its diversity and impact, society tends to consider every man-made chemical as bad and everything
natural as good, just because something is natural does not automatically make it good for the health or the environment or unsafe if it’s a man-made chemical. In this project, we aimed to
come up professional development activities for teachers which they can integrate into their teaching curriculum
A professional development day in spectroscopic and molecular analysis was held in conjunction with the Royal Australian Chemistry Institute (RACI) with science teachers from high schools
from around South-east Queensland and another with science teachers from nearby schools. We had various hands on laboratory activities including identification and quantification of aspirin
by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and FTIR , Monitoring of Vitamin B12in energy drinks and determination of Iron with 1,10-phenanthroline . The activities provided relatable
material to spark interests in students to look deeper and research further into the topic.
FTIR
The instrument : Perkin Elmer Spectrum two +
Attenuated Total Refractance (ATR)
ATR generally allows qualitative or quantitative
analysis of samples with little or no sample
preparation, which greatly speeds sample analysis
giving high sample to sample spectra reproducibility
which can be identified by running against a
database. In this activity we determined the
composition of analgesics in an unknown tablet with
starch as a binding agent .
The output was an IR spectrum which identified the
analgesic to be aspirin by running a search in our
forensic database shown below.
Conclusions / Outlook
Introduction to high school teachers to hands on spectroscopic laboratory activities received really good feedback since not only did it give the teachers hands on experience with current
instrumentation they don’t have access to in the schools, it was applicable to their teaching curriculum and also it inspires high school students to pursue studying science. In the future, more
activities could be added to cover other analytical instruments and practices.
Vis / Fluorescence Spectroscopy
The instrument : SpectroVis Plus spectrophotometer used in
conjunction with the labquest2
The SpectroVis Plus spectrophotometer a versatile, general-
purpose Vis spectrometer for absorption, transmission,
fluorescence, emission, colour and other applications. In this
activity we monitoring of Vitamin B12in energy drinks by
fluorescence spectroscopy and determination of Iron with 1,10-
phenanthroline by visible light spectroscopy
The fluorescence values of the energy drinks were recorded and
vitamin b12 quantified by running the fluorescence value against
a calibration curve.
A spectrum of the given sample was obtained by vis spectroscopy
and the Iron content was determined by running the obtained
absorbance value against a premade calibration curve that.
Acknowledgements : This project was done as part of my Bachelor of Biomolecular Science (adv) degree under Griffith University School of BPS. I would like to acknowledge my supervisor Alan White
for continuous support and guidance throughout the project. Many thanks to the members of the chemistry teaching laboratory for a welcoming and friendly
environment.
References : http://www.waters.com/waters/en_US/HPLC---High-Performance-Liquid-Chromatography/nav.htm?locale=en_US&cid=10048919#sthash.h7hocJDu.dpuf.
GRIFFITHS, P.R. HASETH, J.A. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry. Second Edition. Canada, Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-19404-0