Contact: Maridith Geuder
STARKVILLE, Miss.--It may start as nail polish remover, but by the time a group of Mississippi State chemistry students finish, the ordinary drugstore purchase becomes a fascinating analysis of compounds at their most basic levels.
Utilizing a nearly $150,000 National Science Foundation grant, the university's new Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility provides the latest in high-powered instrumentation for students enrolled in undergraduate chemistry laboratories.
The Hand Chemical Laboratory-housed NMR equipment clearly is a powerful tool for analyzing the structural and chemical properties of molecules. As with the polish remover and a range of other similar experiments, MSU students simultaneously are improving their knowledge of modern chemistry and the relevance of chemistry to their everyday lives.
"This is a highly sophisticated technology not typically available to undergraduates for hands-on experience," said the chemistry department's Debbie J. Beard, principal investigator of the grant and NMR facility manager.
With the assistance of departmental colleague William P. Henry, who serves a co-principal investigator, the NSF-funded effort is implementing the research technology across freshman-senior-level chemistry laboratories. Stephen Foster, another departmental colleague, also is assisting.
Specifically, their new computerized "engine"--a Bruker-Biospin AVANCE III console--provides the very latest in investigatory capabilities when integrated with the facility's existing magnet. The faculty members say that MSU's new approach is unlike any found at comparable universities they have visited.
"As a service department, we're providing novel educational opportunities to students in chemistry, biochemistry, biological sciences, chemical engineering, and a range of academic areas at the university," Beard explained. "This has the potential to impact more than 1,200 students each year."
Sociologist Gregory Dunaway is providing an assessment of the project's effectiveness.
Dunaway, who also is interim associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said it is common for students to have varying anxiety levels and apprehension about science, particularly in a laboratory setting.
"We are very much interested in how using state-of-the-art equipment affects students' perceptions and attitudes toward chemistry and science in general," he said.
In addition to providing advanced resources for MSU students, the grant will enable the chemistry department to offer research opportunities for other area institutions, among them Mississippi University for Women in Columbus and Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena.
The outreach activities also will help acquaint high school teachers and students, as well as community college faculty and students, with the instrument.
MSU's chemistry department dates back to 1881 and is among the oldest academic units at the land-grant institution. A part of the arts and sciences college, it offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees.
For more information, contact Beard at 662-325-2817 or djb1@ra.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.