ChANge Chem Lab will improve the quality of STEM education by transforming the laboratory curriculum of undergraduate general chemistry for engineers. This builds on the success of a prior NSF-funded TUES project (DUE-1245068). The curriculum will provide a rich context grounded in the Grand Challenges for Engineering, ensuring a relevant and engaging experience for students. Development activities will include inquiry-based laboratory experiments and support materials that emulate and make explicit an engineer's way of thinking, learning, and collaborating. Student success will be supported by design structures that engage deep learning strategies and which embody our understanding of effective learning in the laboratory. This approach has been shown to support the retention of underrepresented student groups.
ChANgE Chem Lab will generate further evidence regarding how to utilize the potential of laboratory experiments to improve student learning and broaden participation in STEM. This will be achieved by building upon the intellectual merit of prior work (DUE-1245068), which produced a validated model of project-based learning that supports the retention of underrepresented students. Cognitive apprenticeships will provide the theoretical framework to develop six new engineering design projects for the undergraduate general chemistry lab. Each project will include three weeks of inquiry-based experiments and support materials. The project will directly involve more than 600 students, 15 teaching assistants, and five instructors. This approach has been shown to increase the retention of all students, and this project will address the low retention rate of college for students majoring in engineering during the first two-years and broaden participation.
