Project Abstract
Earlham
College will develop multidisciplinary science curriculum modules emphasizing
computational methods and student/faculty research projects both focusing
on a common core problem: metals in the environment. This project emphasizes
collaboration among our natural science departments, including biology,
chemistry, computer science, geosciences, mathematics, and environmental
science. Scientific research is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary,
collaborative, and computational. Therefore, it is essential to train
our students to develop multi-faceted approaches to problem solving that
use both traditional laboratory techniques and computational methods.
This project will introduce an important scientific problem (metals in
the environment), ask students to collect and analyze data, and to make
interpretations using different disciplinary perspectives. This idea of
collaborative multidisciplinary learning will transform our undergraduate
curriculum in the sciences and provide a model for programs among the
sciences at other liberal arts colleges.
The
ecological impact of heavy metal pollution in biota at Springwood Lake
will be explored through modules within two field and one cellular biology
classes and through summer research.
The
Chemistry department will develop and implement course modules in one
introductory and two advanced courses. Because of the central nature of
trace metal analysis in the biological and geological studies, chemistry
faculty and students will collaborate on the preparation and analysis
of biological, soil and sediment samples in summer research. During summer
research we will also explore other aspects of metal research, such as
the use of diffusive gradient in thin film (DGT) techniques for speciation
in soils and sediments.
Working
with scientists from other disciplines on computational methods has been
a focus of our Computer Science department for some time now. We have
experience with the pedagogical research, and operational aspects of computational
science and the high performance computing gear that support it.
The
Geosciences department will implement course modules in intro-level Physical
Geology and upper-level Hydrogeology and Geochemistry courses. Additionally,
the soils and sediment samples that will be analyzed during the Geochemistry
module require extensive fractionation and treatment, and thus will be
processed during the summer.
We will make use of the “metals in the environment” data sets in teaching
students how to do typical tasks of descriptive statistics: measures of
central tendency, measures of dispersion, and construction and interpretation
of graphical displays of statistical information (univariate and bivariate
data). Use of data sets from Springwood Lake and our back-campus field
site will help students grasp the differences in origin and potential
uses between observational and experimental data.