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During my graduate studies at the University of New Hampshire, I have had the privilege of mentoring an undergraduate student in the department of Chemistry, and three High school students from the Methuen High school, MA. Both mentoring responsibilities involved an introduction to, and the application of photocatalysis for the degradation of pollutants in waste-water. This level of instruction was very special for me as it gave me the opportunity to focus on the very fine details of a very small topic to people who had no prior knowledge of the topic. I saw them go from complete novices to being able to challenge me at times when I made statements that did not fit into prior models that we had established. It also made me realize how important instructional methods are; I saw immediate results of my instruction and mentorship and had the opportunity to make quick on-the-spot modifications whenever I wasn't getting through to my mentees. I also began to have a better appreciation of the fact that the instructional methods that work very well for a large class of students, will not necessarily work for a smaller class or single individual (and vice versa).
Mentoring Assignment 1: Undergraduate Chemistry student of the University of New Hampshire
Mentoring Assignment 1: Undergraduate Chemistry student of the University of New Hampshire
The undergraduate student went on to develop this study into her graduating thesis . She studied the effect of using different precursors for the synthesis of graphitic carbon nitride and learnt how to use different material characterization techniques to understand the properties of material, observe their behavior in a reaction, and combine these two skills to predict other applications of the material as well as how the material should behave if any of the service conditions are modified.
Ruotong.pdfIn addition to this, she studied the effect of the calcination dwelling time, on the final properties of the material; as a way of optimizing the synthesis procedure (reducing the energy consumption of the synthesis, as well as, reducing production time and costs). This aspect of the mentoring goes beyond the traditional transmission or acquisition of knowledge that a large class of students would be ordinarily subject to, and introduced her to social responsibility; learning that our actions as individuals inherently affects our environment and society. Why spend more time, precursors, and energy synthesizing a material, if you can do it for a fraction of these costs?
Ruotong2.pdfThe most interesting part of this section of her studies is that it requires a level of proficiency in materials characterization; she had to develop the ability to recognize when her desired material has been formed, and this ability only comes with initially studying and understanding established spectra and reaction dynamics of the desired target material. This shows the intimate relationship that this section has with the previous one (a recognition that is required for activating, and further developing relevant schemas)
Mentoring Assignment 2: High School students from the Methuen High School
Mentoring Assignment 2: High School students from the Methuen High School
My mentoring assignment with the high school students began with an introduction of the basic terms and concepts of photocatalysis. Once they had a good appreciation of these concepts, we went on to hold brainstorming sessions as well as perform thought experiments, as a way of consolidating this new knowledge and identifying situations where it can be applied. Since the initial intention of this assignment was to prepare them for a science fair, they wanted to work on something tangible, something that they and their target audience could relate to, and they chose to degrade a textile dying solution as a means of providing an alternative method to current waste-water treatments.
We chose graphitic carbon nitride because of its excellent photocatalytic properties, and they went on to propose modifications to this catalyst by varying the precursor, increasing the surface area, and incorporating metals as a co-catalyst in a Fenton like reaction. The resultant products were then quickly screened to determine the most suitable catalyst for further study.
The textile dying solution was actually collected from the pre-dying batch of a knitting company in Massachusetts , and this is a very important factor in this type of learning; the students collected the solutions themselves, knew exactly what it was used for, knew the effect of making sure that the compounds in the solution do not get into the municipal water supply, came up with designs for tailoring the properties of the material to be used for the degradation, tested the material themselves, and came up with conclusions and models to match what they know about the material and their observations after they had attempted to degrade the textile dying solution. Since they were in charge of the entire study, they could relate with it better, and had a deeper understanding of what what was happening.
They finally choose three samples (1.0, 4.0 and 4.1) from the screening above, and performed a more detailed study in an attempt to elucidate the reaction kinetics, and the extent of decolorization of the textile dying solution.
I was nothing more than a guide throughout this entire process and was responsible for making sure that the desired learning outcomes were met. The only time that I was very involved in the study was when I was introducing them (via remote instruction) to data clean-up and organization using Microsoft Excel and Veusz.
Data cleanup and plotting.pdfThey defended their results at their school's annual science fair, won awards for their work, and advanced to the regional and state competitions. For me, this experience was more than just the awards or the fact that they had advanced to higher competitions; it was seeing the joy on their faces when they saw the results of their experiments, when they were able to make inferences based on their recently acquired background knowledge, when they understood and could explain what was happening, and when they mentioned that they plan to pursue careers in the sciences.
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