High School-College Research Collaboration

Ronald L. Musselman' Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604

Elizabeth K. John2 McCaskey High School, Lancaster. PA 17604

Glenn W. Shaffer Hempfield High School, Landisville, PA 17538

Successful teaching includes not only good content hut high schools. Upon the move of our lahoratory to Franklin also enthusiasm for the subject. Generating excitement for and Marshall, it was the logical one to actually initiate the chemistry is a goal of every chemistry teacher or professor, program here. The next sections outline our research pro- hut sometimes the routine and workload overshadow the gram and some of the collaborative results. subject. Just as first-hand experience is an excellent way LO

generate excitement for students, current research is a mod Program way for faculty to ohtilin new lirst-hand experiences and ra regain a sense of excitement and confidence in the teaching BBckground

( I ) . This paper describes a program of research cot The research in our laboratory has emphasized the polar- laboration with high school teachers in our lahoratory a t ized electronic spectroscopy of both models of binuclear Franklin and Marshall College and descrihes an academic oxygen transport proteins such as hemocyauin (copper- alliance that emerged from these experiences. based) and hemerythrin (iron-based) and one-dimensional

Research has lone been the method at the colleee and conductors with chains of metal atoms in sauare-planar university level for maintaining alink between theclassroom arrangements. In both cases, interactions between metals and first-hand knowledae. The instructor's activity in re- are of interest and the prohe is the charre-transfer transi- search and periodic review of results through the publication process are an effective way to maintain currency in a re- search area and to lend authority to course presentations as a whole. The students, in turn, respond favorably to an instructor who teaches with a sense of freshness and first- hand authority.

Pedagogically, the same arguments in favor of research by college faculty may he applied to high school teachers. The main obstacles, however, are the heavy classroom, lunch- room, etc., responsibilities of the latter. Good teachers re- solve to present solid and lively classes in spite of these problems and do motivate several students each year to continue in the sciences. The interested high school teacher, however, need not give up the idea of an active research program. Several collaborative research Dromams between high school and college faculty have been iep&ted (2-41, and interest from a hiah school tearher could help initiate a new program in a locaicollege or university. For several years our lahoratory a t Franklin and Marshall College and earlier a t Principia College has provided a means for high school teachers to participate in an active research program throueh 5-10-week intensive summer oroerams and weeklv - . research meetings throughout the academic year.

The initial imoetus for our collaborative efforts came a t Principia college in Elsah, Illinois. The college is a unit of The Principia, which includes several pre-college units lo- cated 50 miles away in St. Louis, Missouri. Through a desire to maintain a sense of unity in the institution, a program to provide stipends to Upper School teachers for summer re- search in our lahoratory a t the college was encouraged and funded by The Principia. In addition, cooperative efforts such as reciprocal classroom visits were regularly carried out.

At Franklin and Marshall College, meanwhile, efforts were underway to establish a similar program with the local

' Auihor to whom correspondence should be addressed. Retired.

tions in the complexes.~~olarized spectra require oriented molecules, obtainable through crystallization. Since charge- transfer transitions are usuilly symmetry-allowed, they are very intense (f between 1000 and 80,000 M-'em-') and will not pass through most single crystals of inorganic complexes. Specular (mirrorlike) reflectance is greatest when ahsor- hance is most intense and is thus most suitable for such intense transitions. Our laboratory focuses on visible and ultraviolet polarized specular reflectance spectroscopy to assist in assigning transitions in these complexes. A variety of associated techniques is needed to carry out a complete investigation including synthesis, crystallization, X-ray dif- fraction, morphology determination, molecular graphics (ORTEP), and spectral interpretation including Gaussian analysis. Such a variety lends itself well to an undergraduate lahoratory. I t also is good for high school chemistry teachers who can choose from a number of projects to suit their experience and interests.

The first steps in developing a working collaboration were to find interested hieh school teachers and obtain fundine for them. In spring 1986,12 letters were sent to several loc2 high schools inviting participants for a summer of research in our lahoratory. Three serious inquiries were received, and two (EKJ and GWS) were selected, representing the more senior of the local high school chemistry teachers. (Possible reasons for the lack of responses from more junior colleagues will he discussed later.) Funding was minimal hut entirely from internal F&M funds. The plan was for one teacher to nartici~ate for five weeks. due to earlier summer commit- Lents,-and the other for 10 weeks. In addition, four college students would he narticioatine for the entire 10-week nro- gram. The work was new to thehigh school teachers, sdthe summer was lareelv a time of learuine new technioues along - with some more familiar inorganic synthesis.

The summer provided only a beginning to a valuable broadening experience, and a main concern was for the high school teachers to maintain their newly learned skills and concepts. Thus, during the following academic year regular weekly research meetings o f the lahoratory were scheduled

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Specular Reflectance Research Group

Summer 1987 Organizational Chart

Principal investigator

Research Associates

Hackman Fellows

Research Assistants -

Instruments

Supporting Grants NIH PRF

Figure 1. hganizational m f o r summer 1987. See text for discussion.

so the teachers could attend and maintain contact through- out the year.

The following summer, 1987, the high school teacher staff- ing was thesame as the previous year with the exception that both participated for a full 10 weeks. The teachers were experienced in the lah procedures and theory, having kept familiar with them through the weekly academic year re- search meetings. In the following description, we will discuss primarily the summer 1987 program.

Organization and Function Our research m o w in summer 1987 consisted of 13 indi- - .

viduals including the two high school teachers,a recent grad- uate, four undergraduates. n high school graduate, four high school students, and the principal investigator. Such a large group requires thoughtful organization. Since the two high school teachers were fairlv familiar with the lahoratorv ooer- ations, each of them tookaalf of our participants under their supervision. With support from the two most senior college students the plan was for them to supervise and participate in the projects of one of our grants, a National Institutes of Health Academic Research Enhancement Award (NIH AREA), or the other, an American Chemical Society Petro- leum Research Fund grant (ACS-PRF). The organizational plan is illustrated in Figure 1, wherein "Research Associa- tes" refers to the high school teachers, "Hackman Fellows" are the college students supported with stipends from the Hackman Summer Research Fund a t Franklin and Marshall College, and "Research Assistants" are the high school stu- dents.

The daily routine during the summer began with a meet- ine of all ~ a r t i c i ~ a n t s a t 8 a.m. a t which each oarticinant reciewed <he past day's work and planned the current iay's work. We have found it helpful when workine with freshman and sophomore undergraduates and with k g h school stu- dents to plan their work carefullv each dav. In addition to the review and planning, one of the more experienced mem- bers of the group gave a 30-min presentation on some area of theory related to the work of our laboratory. The theory was presented in such a way that the topics needed for experi- mental work (such as X-ray crystallography) came early in the summer, so, once the synthesis and crystal growing was completed, the students were ready for the more complex processes.

The organizational chart in Figure 1 shows that E. K. John and G. W. Shaffer each had one very experienced student under them (S. Bell and B. Wolfe). The less experienced

college students and most high school students in turn worked with Bell and Wolfe. S. Clymer and A. Musselman were two high school students collaborating on a major com- puter-programming project related to our specnlar reflec- tance microspectrophotometer, and worked directly under G. W. Shaffer, who was the overseer of the reflectance in- strument. The principal investigator (PI) was able to con- centrate his efforts on leadine the dailv nlannine sessions. " . . "

writing papers and proposals, and answering the questions that the other most ex~erienced members of the eroun could - not answer. To encourage independent thinking, only select- ed times were provided for his answering questions: during the morning meeting, just before and after lunch, and at the end of the day. This also ensured uninterrupted blocks of time for the PI'S study and writing.

As the summer progressed, the organization evolved to- ward a more procedure-oriented division of support on the part of the experienced members of the group. The evolved group organization is depicted as a Venn diagram in Figure 2. Generally, one or two individuals were the resident ex- nerts on each techniaue such as transition metal comolex synthesis, X-ray ~r~s~a l lography , ORTEP drawings, reflec- tion spectroscopy, etc. The original supervisors remained as project supervisors but natural collaborations developed among the group members.

Achievements The specific projects ranged from preparation of single

crystals of Ni(CN)42- salts to difficult organometallic syn- theses and from performing Gaussian curve deconvolution to frontier theoretical considerations of the effect of reflec- tions on Kramers-Kronie transformations (5) of s~ecular reflectance into absorhake spectra. Most projects were typical of undergraduate research projects, but three were especially noteworthy because of their heavy involvement of high school teachers and students.

One was the job of preparing single crystals of several Ni(CNh- salts, which required some synthesis in addition to recrystallization. This was performed by a pair of high school students working primarily under a high school teacher. This was a sucEeisful project because the proce- dures were well within the capability of thestudents. Result- ine crvstals have since been used for a local science fair pGjeci by a third high school student. Using X-ray diffrac- tion and o ~ t i c a l methods. the crvstals were found to be well developed-and single.

A second was the writing of three computer programs for three Apple I1 computers connected to e&h other &d to an HP3000 mainframe that would serve as a simulator for our specular reflectance instrument. Two high school students

n

Figwe 2. Venn dlagam of wllaborative relationships within group lor summer 1987. Degree of overlap Indicates approximate partlon of mllaboration.

854 Journal of Chemical Education

supervised by a high school teacher carried out this project successfully. Numerous interfacing problems were encoun- tered, including the need to make an Apple I1 behave in a nonstandard manner in order to simulate accurately the monochromator controller in the reflection instrument.

The third project of special note was the preparation of two cobalt dimer complexes and an iron dimer complex by a high school teacher and two undergraduates over the past twosummers. These comnlexes serve as models for the binu- clear copper protein hemocyanin and iron protein hemery- thrin. The team was vew effective in searchine the auurouri- ate literature (&8), inciuding original ~ e r n e r p a p e r s i n der- man, devising procedures and preparing the compounds

The middle com~lex salt is a new material. X-ray structures are currently hekg performed on the cobalt co&pleaes at a collahoratinr! laboratory, and the iron complex is being char- acterized m~rphologicdly and spectroscopically.

Academic Alliances in Chemistry Academic alliances, where faculty from both high schools

and colleges in a particular discipline collaborate on course development, research, and general professional concerns, have existed for manv vears in foreim laneuwes and litera- ture, history, and more recently in Englis<, t i e humanities, and sciences. Academic Alliances in Chemistry is a new pro- gram established and funded by The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and administered by The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and coordinated by Amie Knox. The goal is to promote interaction between high school and college teachers in a variety of activities, including formal meetings a t which topics of academic inter- est are discussed, casual contacts or visits to classrooms, and summer and academic year research collaboration.

Formation We learned of the Academic Alliances in Chemistw uro-

gram after the first summer of our collaboration at ~ r&kl in and Marshall College and realized we had already been car- rying out one of the functions of an academic ailiance. We also learned that a Dreyfus Master Teacher is needed to initiate a local academic alliance for recognition by Academ- ic Alliances in Chemisrry. Since one of us (EKJJ has been a Dreyfus Master ~ e a c h e ~ for several years, she was the natu- ral choice to take the lead. Her first step was to gather additional chemistrv facultv and a develonment officer a t Franklin and ~ a r i h a l l college as a steering committee which olanned an oreanizational meetine of local college and high sihool teachersfor December 198g. ~nformation from 15 institutions was eathered and an application for recoeni- tion was sent to ~ c a h e m i c Alliances inchemistry.

Initially, four local colleges and 12 high schools joined the group known as the Dutch Country Academic Alliance in Chemistry (DCAAC). Three meetings were held in winter and spring 1986, during which time a matching grant was received from Academic Alliances in Chemistry for the pur- pose of supporting several high school teachers for summer research a t the cooperating colleges.

The DCAAC has now been in existence for about a year and a half and has grown to include five area colleges and universities, a major international industry, headquartered locally, and over 13 high schools. The original steering com- mittee coordinated by E. K. John has matured into a set of officers with an executive committee to handle meeting agenda, funding proposals, finances, and a newsletter. Dur- ing summer 1987 four colleges sponsored research participa- tion with seven high schod teachers. For summer 1988 five ~ - - - ~ ~~-~ ~ ~ ~ " ~~

colleges and an industry will sponsor about 10 high school chemistry teachers in research collaborations.

The goal of the DCAAC has been to improve chemical education throueh close ties between hieh school and college faculty. Our specific methods have been the fostering of relationshius which enable members to call on one another for assistance in theory or presentations, to present informa- tion on the orofession such as safetv procedures and new curricula, and as emphasbed in this paper, the provision of research opuortunities for high school faculty in our colleges and industry.

.

A Reluctance Factor We have noticed an unexpected problem with some of our

efforts a t research collaboration: onlv a verv small uercent- age of high school teachers apply fo;summ& research pro- erams.This was trueat Princioiaand is thecasein theDutch - Country Alliance. Several possible reasons have been sug- eested: (1) 8-10 weeks is too much of the summer to devote to a sin& endeavor, (2) more supplemental income can be found elsewhere, and (3) many teachers are reluctant to place themselves in a position wherein their knowledge of chemistry is observed by peers. The first problem can be remedied by offering five-week research collaborations where that is practical. The second can be overcome by offering more competitive stipends. Recent values have var- ied from $1250 to $2700 for a 10-week period. The latter value becomes somewhat comuetitive. The third uroblem is a very sensitive one and mustbe approached carefully. The emuhasis must be on mutual collaboration wherein each individual is recognized as bringing some unique contribu- tion to a research oraanization. In addition, it should be stressed that no one iGdividual can he expected to be famil- iar in detail with all areas of chemistry, and being unfamiliar with many areas is, in fact, professionally acceptable. With this preamble a teacher may be more willing to collaborate with colleagues. In addition, i t must be recognized and em- phasized that the summer experience is a time for the high school teacher to rejuvenate enthusiasm through learning and discovering new ideas.

Summary Hieh school teachers are a valuahle addition to chemistrv

research laboratories and can produce impressive results either on their own or in collaboration with undergraduates or high school students. Their professional training and teaching experience allow for creative productivity in a con- centratGd s"mmer research experience. ~ a m i l i a r i t ~ with a program during an academic year can enhance the research results. The principal beneficiaries in addition to the teach- ers are the college and high school students working with the teachers during the summer and the teachers' students dur- ing the following academic year. The latter is due to an enhanced enthusiasm and a greater sense of authority in the classroom.

Volume 66 Number 8 August 1989 655

Academic alliances in chemistry provide a broader col- grant #R15GM37481-01 to RLM, and Franklin and Mar- lahoration, including in addition toposaihle research experi- shall College. ences, a variety of continuing local professional contacts in support of teachers at all institutions.

Acknowledgment We wish to express gratitude for support from Academic

Alliances in Chemistrv. administered bv the Woodrow Wil- son National ~e l lowskp Foundation and funded by The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, from the Petro- leum Research Fund of The American Chemical Society, grant #19300-B3-SF88, the National Institutes of Health,

1. Doyle. M. P. J. Chem. Educ. 1384.61.854

ChemicalSaiety Wdington. DC. 1981;Abstract CHED 121. 5. Anex. 8. G. Mol. Cwaf. 1966.1,l. 6. Mori,M.; Weil. J.A.;Iahipum, M. J.Am.Chem. Sac. 19ES,90,615. 7. Werner. A. Anmkn 1910.375,70. 8. Weighardt.K.;Pohl,K.;Gebcrt, W.Angnu.Chm.Int. Ed. Engl. 19SS,22,721.

656 Journal of Chemical Education