The goal of this project is to link several general chemistry lab experiments to a central theme: the weekly monitoring of aqueous metal ion concentrations in local surface waters. The current general chemistry lecture already introduces several popular topics early in the students' education to help capture their attention and demonstrate the relevance of learning the introductory material. This proposal would extend this concept to the laboratory, where environmental monitoring of chemical concentrations of metals will capture the students' attention. One of the most sensitive ways to measure these metal concentrations is via Atomic Absorption (AA) spectroscopy. Four AA spectrometers will be added to the general chemistry laboratory, and each general chemistry student will individually make several measurements of metal ion concentrations from local sites during their first year of general chemistry. These data would be used by the students for individual lab reports during the year, and they would also be posted on a weekly basis to a public-access fileserver. This constantly expanding database of student results will be available for a final "culminating experience" laboratory report at the end of the first year of chemistry, when each student will be asked to analyze the data and to look for patterns that relate the results to local weather, topography or land use. These weekly measurements will also be available to all upper-class students via fileserver, and to other institutions via the WWW. The addition of a sophisticated chemical analysis with obvious ties to local environmental problems will heighten student appreciation and interest in all aspects of the laboratory course, and strengthen ties to the lecture component of general chemistry. Also the data analysis skills acquired at the general chemistry level will allow the students to attempt more sophisticated analyses in their upper-class courses.
