CoLab: A Workshop-Based Undergraduate Research Experience for Entering College Students
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Adrian Wierzchowski [1] ; Donald J. Wink [1] ; Hongyang Zhang [1] ; Kristy Kambanis [1] ; Jacqueline O. Rojas Robles [1] ; Avia Rosenhouse-Dantsker [1]
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[1] University of Illinois at Chicago
University of Illinois at Chicago
City of Chicago, Estados Unidos
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- Localización: Journal of chemical education, ISSN 0021-9584, Vol. 99, Nº 12, 2022, págs. 4085-4093
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
The goal of undergraduate chemistry laboratories is to allow students to learn about chemical systems and key laboratory skills. They should then apply this knowledge to solve problems and connect macroscopic observations in the laboratory with those occurring at the submicroscopic level. Unfortunately, these needs are not met through traditional confirmation laboratories. Therefore, many chemistry instructors are turning toward research-based laboratories and course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). There are also many cases where summer workshops, often with nontraditional pedagogy, are used for students. This article describes the STEM CoLab Program, a novel type of summer workshop that seeks to build student chemistry knowledge and skills in research and presentation at the beginning of their college work. This program uses the principles of CUREs for students who are just entering the university, mostly as freshmen. Several different phenomena have been investigated during the program. In this paper, we report the overall work of the program from 2016 through 2021 and provide additional details on the program’s implementation in 2020 and 2021 when students conducted their work from home, using a combination of a take home research kit for studying salivary amylase “in vitro” and computer-based visualizations of amylase-inhibitor interactions “in silico” using PyMOL and online docking tools.
