An initiative entitled Integrating Group Laboratory Activities Across the Chemistry Curriculum is working to solve a serious problem in chemistry education. Nonscience and science majors enrolled in introductory courses are not involved in cooperative group laboratory exercises relevant to the environment, advanced materials, and biotechnology because of the lack of versatile, state-of-the-art instrumentation. As a group project in Instrumental Analysis, chemistry majors are developing and testing protocols involving CE, IC, infrared, and VIS spectroscopies. These experiments are being exported to introductory chemistry lab courses and executed by combined groups of science and nonscience majors. Chemistry majors, acting as peer-instructors, guide students in executing experiments that reinforce chemical concepts. The project supports three major objectives in a revised introductory chemistry curriculum: cooperative laboratory interaction between students in General Chemistry, The Chemical World Around Us, and Instrumental Analysis; rigorous demonstration of quantitative chemical principles in relevant contexts to modern chemical perspectives; and a challenging project-oriented laboratory experience that facilitates peer-directed group learning. The audience for this project includes women of traditional college age who are enrolled in introductory chemistry courses, as well as junior and senior chemistry majors. About 45% of the students in the Chemical World course are preservice teachers. The project affects more than 300 students. The impact of this project is that it increases interaction between students in the upper- and lower-division courses; introduces women to technology-centered experiments; introduces preservice teachers to pedagogy that will be important to them in their future classrooms; introduces sophisticated concepts in the context of modern chemical experiments using instrumentation; and creates peer-directed learning opportunities for science and nonscience majors.
