Welcome to the Real World

t first, the aquariums sitting on a lab bench look like, well, aquariums. About two feet long and one foot wide, with damsel fish swimming circles around anemones and coral in one, and goldfish in the other. But these aren't just normal aquariums. They are part of an experimental chemistry curriculum funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation to Athens Area Technical Institute. And they are changing the way technicians are taught.

"The idea behind this is that if students are given a real context in which to learn the chemical principles, it's more meaningful to them,", says Dr. Carol White, dean of the Division of Health Sciences at Athens Tech and principal investigator of the new curriculum. "When I started in the university in the late 1960s, we learned about these esoteric principles, but got little practical material. Now we're going to give the principles a practical basis — something students can relate to."

Ken Hughes is telling students why keeping a saltwater aquarium healthy is even more challenging than maintaining a freshwater aquarium containing the goldfish. And he's teaching chemistry in the process.

Hughes, co-principal investigator and chemistry professor from Kennesaw State University, explains to the class how the saltwater aquarium-the one with the damsel fish, anemones and coral contains special filters to sift out waste products such as ammonia and nitrates. He says it's always difficult to keep fish alive in an aquarium: Without filters, the fishes' own waste would soon poison them. That's because ammonia wastes break down much more slowly in salt water than in, say, a pond.

Students nod as Hughes chalks the relevant equations on the blackboard.

The coursework, funded by a $733,000 Advanced Technology Education grant from the National Science Foundation-the only currently funded grant for a two-year college in Georgia-makes complicated chemistry easier to understand by using classroom examples like the aquarium.

This past spring, during the first segment of the class, students tested drinking water for heavy metals and turned to the Athens-Clarke County Water Bureau's treatment plant and local chemical companies for realworld experience while also keeping a close watch over the aquarium.

Toward summer, the course's second segment emphasized metal recovery from waste. White said that students extracted gold from sand collected near Dahlonega's gold mines and other metals from old electronics parts.

Then, next year, two more course sections will teach students about pharmaceutical testing and quality control in the manufacture of polymer fibers.

"I think the innovative part is bringing the context into the classroom, trying to make the material more relevant," says White, who will also teach some of the classes. 'Using soil from an actual gold mine, for example. Often, a lot of curriculum development goes by the wayside because the course material is not focused on local needs. Well, we've fixed that problem here."

These skills are critical, says White, pointing to recent employment projection statistics: Athens-area labor numbers predict a 22 percent increase in job opportunities for graduates, of this program between now and the year 2005.

"The jobs are certainly out there," she says. "But the programs aren't. A number of these programs around the nation have closed down in recent years."

Athens Tech's research laboratory technology course is only one of a handful of such programs in the southern United States that prepares research lab technicians to conduct research tests and perform measurements — and the only one in Georgia.

Add to that an innovative new way of teaching, and enrollment is up. Approximately a dozen students are currently enrolled in the course at Athens Tech, meeting for four classroom hours per week and spending six additional hours in the lab each week.

The coursework is broken into four five-week sections, each with its own special focus.

Technical colleges around the nation are inquiring about the new curriculum. White and Hughes have given a number of presentations on the program, including a late-March talk at the American Chemistry Society's annual meeting in Anaheim, Cal. They are developing a teaching package, including a workbook and teaching guidelines for other two-year and high school chemistry educators, and will apply for another grant next year to create additional teaching materials.

"We wanted to make it something that's going to work for anyone who wants to teach this class," White said. "So that anyone can be trained to do this. It's that important."