Chemistry professor receives grant for innovative teaching
Skidmore College Professor of Chemistry Kimberley A. Frederick and colleagues from three research universities have received a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to develop innovative approaches to the teaching of chemistry.
Frederick, who is project director for the $75,000 grant, and colleagues Renee Cole of the University of Iowa, Marya Lieberman of the University of North Dakota and Vince Remcho of Oregon State University will create exercises using microfluidics — the manipulation of fluids at a tiny scale — to teach basic analytical chemistry laboratory courses.
The goal is develop course materials that support more active, engaged approaches to the teaching of chemistry. The researchers will consider changes in faculty views on teaching important areas of analytical chemistry and how those line up with student competencies in those areas.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant, the first for Skidmore, will continue through the 2020-2021 academic year.
The number of science majors at Skidmore has doubled over the past decade, and Skidmore has continued to emphasize the centrality of science to a liberal arts curriculum and the conviction that scientific literacy is essential for all students.
The College is building a state-of-the-art science center – the Center for Integrated Sciences – that will support new approaches to the sciences and explore connections across the sciences and other disciplines.
The first phase of CIS is slated to open its doors this fall, and the College targets a 2024 date for the project’s completion.
