Chemical and physical science adapt courses to online format

Chemical and physical science professors provide examples of how the switch to online instruction has changed their method of teaching.

Professor Weiss adapts geology course to online format

No science lab? No worries.

Tarin Weiss, Ph.D., associate professor of chemical and physical science at Westfield State, recently shared with NewsWise how she has been able to adapt her Environmental Geology course to an online format.

“In Environmental Geology (GEOL 0205), students investigate water quality by first constructing physical models to conceptualize how point- and non-point contamination enters a watershed system,” said Professor Weiss.

During an in-class session, watershed construction looks like this.

Students also may visit Westfield’s Little River to explore stream morphology and water quality.

“This semester, however, we are more limited,” said Prof. Weiss. “Instead, students constructed simple watershed models at home using plain paper and tape. They crumpled paper to build a set of 3-4 watersheds, delineated boundaries, and explored surface run-off and infiltration using ink from markers, spices, jimmies, or whatever they could find.”

Here is a sample dry watershed model, created by a student

Professor Weiss added: “After building their dry models, they added precipitation and observed how and where the water and added materials flowed. They reflected on the ways their models were conceptually accurate and inaccurate.”

Following this activity, students investigated their own watersheds and their surface water quality using real-time data from Model My Watershed https://modelmywatershed.org/ and the EPA’s Water Quality Assessment Reports https://iaspub.epa.gov/waters10/attains_index.home.

Here is a watershed model with precipitation, created by the same student.

“It seems as though students enjoyed the hands-on aspect of the activity, and their responses bore out that it helped them conceptualize watersheds and contamination sources,” said Prof. Weiss. “And, while learning, I believe you should always get your hands dirty. I know that happened.”

Prof. Theis creatively teaches chemistry remotely

This semester’s pivot to online instruction required faculty, such as Karsten Theis, Ph.D., professor of chemical and physical science, to quickly adjust how they teach.

Professor Theis explained that the molecular models typically used to teach chemistry are on campus, so this requires faculty and students to get creative.

“In other natural sciences, if you need an example, you just go outside and look at a tree, or roll a marble down a slope,” said Prof. Theis. “In chemistry, where the molecular objects we are studying are too small to see even with a microscope, we resort to molecular model kits.”

Without these model kits, students in Prof. Theis’ General Chemistry course showed their creativity when asked to build a model of the tetrahedral molecule methane (CH₄), the main component of natural gas.

This model was created by sophomore Jack Duncan.

“They used fruits, erasers, or tinfoil balls for atoms; and pencils, spaghetti, or skewers for bonds,” said Prof. Theis. “One student asked his housemates to make a human sculpture to resemble the methane molecule. The wider chemistry community chimed in as well, suggesting tying four balloons together https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/a/129126/72973.”

“Grasping the shape of tetrahedral molecules is the basis for the amazing properties of more complicated molecules, governing, for example, the products of chemical reactions and how drug molecules bind their receptor proteins. This shape has such a significance that one of the main scientific journals is named simply Tetrahedron, so it makes sense to build your own, and learn from it. And when you got it, you can eat it.”