Teaching Collaborations and Scientific Practices through a Vertically Scaffolded Biodiesel Laboratory Experience

Abstract

Guiding students to become practicing scientists entails teaching them the specialized ways of collaborating, writing, and thinking that these professionals utilize every day. Laboratory experiences provide unique opportunities for student-centered curricular activities that mimic these skills. The biodiesel laboratory experience described here connects previously published biodiesel exercises in an intentionally scaffolded experience that models for students the types of collaboration and communication skills they will need if they choose to enter a STEM profession. The collaboration is vertically scaffolded to span multiple courses (general chemistry, organic chemistry, and physical chemistry) with opportunities for future connections with additional upperdivision courses. The experience is writing intensive with a focus on both scientific writing through formal laboratory reports and writing for communication with nonscientists. By encountering this experience repeatedly throughout their chemistry coursework, students have the opportunity to develop the habits of working scientists.

STEAM Project-Based Learning Activities at the Science Museum as an Effective Training for Future Chemistry Teachers

“…Few studies have been published so far about the STEM or STEAM teaching approach applied to chemistry education. An interesting laboratorial STEM activity has been proposed to first-years undergraduate students during an introductory chemistry course concerning biodiesels [63]. Innovative laboratories have been recently reviewed [64] about 3D-printing as a tool for teaching chemistry: at the interface among chemistry, math, physics and engineering, students can learn molecular representations, visualizing molecules in 3D, or built microfluidic devices, electrolytic cells and spectrometer devices by programming with CAD software [64].…”

“…Active learning and teaching methods referring to the constructivism theory have been widely explored and applied to chemical education at different levels from the primary school to the university [40,[70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77]. Chemistry is indeed a very experimental discipline and the role of laboratorial activities, where students are actively involved in all steps of the learning process, has been recognized as a central aspect of chemistry education [12,18,63,66,[78][79][80]. Despite different types of laboratorial strategies have been developed to teach chemistry, including many examples of virtual and digital laboratorial activities performed during COVID-19 pandemic [81,82], almost all recent works focus on inquiry-based, problem solving and project-based learning methods [63,[72][73][74][75][76][77]83].…”

“…Chemistry is indeed a very experimental discipline and the role of laboratorial activities, where students are actively involved in all steps of the learning process, has been recognized as a central aspect of chemistry education [12,18,63,66,[78][79][80]. Despite different types of laboratorial strategies have been developed to teach chemistry, including many examples of virtual and digital laboratorial activities performed during COVID-19 pandemic [81,82], almost all recent works focus on inquiry-based, problem solving and project-based learning methods [63,[72][73][74][75][76][77]83]. Project-Based Learning (PjBL) is a teaching/ learning pedagogy that centers learning experiences around projects, which can be structured in different ways depending on the targets, aims and chemical contents.…”

Incorporating Interlab Collaborations into the Organic Chemistry Teaching Laboratories

“…Examples of group work in general chemistry, − organic chemistry, − and advanced chemistry laboratories − have been reported. Traditionally, students from the same lab section (and course) work together, although collaborations across courses have also been reported. − For example, to model drug discovery, students in organic and biochemistry courses synthesized an antibiotic and tested its biological properties . In a similar vein, biochemistry students studied the kinetics of enzyme–substrate reactions with substrates synthesized by organic chemistry students .…”

Qualitative and Quantitative Assessment of Biodiesel Derived from Microalgae

“…As an emerging renewable fuel, biodiesel is an engaging teaching topic, with several activities − and laboratory teaching experiments utilizing a variety of feedstocks, like commercially available petroleum diesel and biodiesel, − fresh and waste cooking oils, − and nonfood crops and waste biomass. − To the best of the authors’ knowledge, only one experiment uses a microalgae feedstock, where over a semester students gain valuable insight into the production cycle of biodiesel. From a teaching viewpoint, the inclusion of biomass cultivation in limited class times is a logistical challenge.…”