Part of Colorado Mountain College's (CMC) mission is to offer "access" to education. With a 12,000 square mile service area, the college extensively utilizes "distance learning" approaches to help to fulfill this goal. Students have long had accesses to a great variety of CMC telecourse offerings. In 1995, the college installed state-of-the-art telecommunication technology and began to offer numerous additional courses via an Interactive Video System (IVS). These IVS classes allow distance learning students from various corners of the district to simultaneously see, hear, and interact directly with their instructors and classmates.
Even with this greater access to distance learning courses, there was still an unmet need. Many of CMC's distance learning students wanted to take a transfer-level college chemistry class. Yet, chemistry credits are not normally transferable if the class does not contain a lab component. Since few distance learning students can attend the weekly lab sessions normally held on campus, it was previously impossible to include a lab component in their distance learning chemistry courses.
Dr. Hubert Alyea first introduced small-scale chemistry techniques at Princeton University over 25 years ago. I have long been an admirer of Dr. Alyea and have attended innumerable small-scale chemistry workshops and conferences over the years. Over the past 10 years, I have increasingly introduced small-scale techniques into my formal chemistry labs and today use them almost exclusively. The development of the "Chem-Kit" was a result of my personal interest and experiences in small-scale techniques and my desire to offer transfer-level chemistry courses for distance learning students.
I first wrote a lab manual of experiments specifically tailored for small-scale techniques, and then designed the Chem-Kit to contain all the necessary equipment and chemicals for students to perform the lab experiments at home. My lab manual and Chem-Kit now make it possible for CMC's distance learning students to take transfer-level "Introduction to Chemistry" courses via telecourse and IVS. The manual and kit can also be used for a "General College Chemistry" course, but for this level, I require students to also spend one full day in the college chemistry laboratory and become familiar with the traditional techniques and equipment used in full-scale chemistry experimentation.
1 Instructional Lab Manual of Micro and Small Scale Experiments
Laboratory
Techniques. Measurements & Density"Chem-Kits" and Dr.
Jeschofnig's "Lab Manual of
Micro & Small Scale Experiments"
are distributed by At Home Science, Inc.
For additional information and on-line ordering visit the Chem-Kits website
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