SUNY College at Purchase is partnering with six local community colleges, Dutchess Community College, Nassau Community College, Orange County Community College, Rockland Community College, Sullivan County Community College, and Westchester Community College, to develop hands-on and virtual biochemistry laboratory experiences to prepare undergraduate students for further study or employment in STEM fields. With the acquisition of spectrophotometers at the community colleges and at Purchase College, and the additional acquisition of a fluorimeter and a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) instrument at Purchase College, faculty at these institutions are integrating state-of-the-art instrumentation into coursework, with the aim of providing students with direct experience in the techniques and applications of instrumentation commonly used in biochemical and pharmaceutical industries. Purchase College faculty are adapting two kinetics experiments for biochemistry students to utilize these instruments and also use greener processes, and they are developing a laboratory experiment for students in organic chemistry to study E2 elimination via UV-vis spectroscopy. The experiments are being used in laboratory courses at Purchase College and also at the community college partners. The three experiments developed through this project are being disseminated through presentations at conferences and publication in peer-reviewed chemical education journals. Faculty at Purchase College and Dutchess Community College are also working with the Teaching, Learning and Technology Center at Purchase College to develop interactive multi-media teaching modules to introduce this instrumentation to students at the six partner community colleges, in order to increase their exposure to biochemical instrumentation methods. Twelve faculty from the partner community colleges are receiving training on all of the instruments through a summer workshop, and the project team is setting up instrumentation with them on their campuses and providing follow-up support to the community college faculty during the academic year in using the instruments in their courses. Students from the six community colleges are also engaging in summer research experiences at Purchase College. The project evaluation is monitoring how many students are impacted, and is examining the extent to which the new laboratory exercises promote student understanding of the use of modern biochemistry instrumentation and the analytical methods they make possible, the extent to which the investigative curriculum promotes student engagement with and understanding of core biochemistry concepts, and the extent to which new curriculum modifications promote improved outcomes for independent student research projects. The evaluation is also studying the impact of the summer training on the community college faculty, the impact of the summer research experiences on the community college students, and the effectiveness of the multimedia simulations in promoting student engagement and learning outcomes and providing an investigative experience for students when they do not have direct access to the instruments.
