An integrated approach by which the student is repeatedly presented with the concept of chemical kinetics in various courses. Each exposure to the concept is presented in increasing complexity. It is the goal of the department to evaluate different methods of presenting this difficult concept. The faculty in each discipline have designed an experiments which improves the laboratory curricula. In the Introductory and General chemistry courses, a qualitative demonstration in lecture and semiquantitative laboratory is being used. In Organic Chemistry, which is generally the second year of a chemistry program, a thorough examination of the mechanism and other chemical parameters (eg. steric hindrance) of a chemical reaction is being examined. The third year of the chemistry program includes Physical Chemistry where a more detailed calculus based description of the chemical kinetics is introduced to describe the mechanism and possible description of reaction intermediates using mathematical models. The fourth year of the chemistry program includes Biochemistry,. The student is being introduced to enzyme kinetics where the mathematical descriptions emphasized in Physical Chemistry are being applied to biological catalysts and extrapolated to the processes occurring in living systems. Other courses in the chemistry program are also teaching these principles, but the contributing courses fall into a chronological sequence and utilize chemical kinetics in their curricula. The students who are benefitting from these programs are the chemistry majors, the students who are taking general education courses, and those students with majors in science education, health science and biology. The grantee is matching the award from non-Federal sources.
