Fuller Foundation and Pfizer Support New Chemistry Labs
With over $1.3 million in gifts and grants, WPI will create a suite of laboratories to support an innovative new project-based approach to teaching first-year chemistry, a course sequence taken by nearly every WPI undergraduate. This project is made possible by a $1 million gift from the George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Foundation of Worcester, contributions of $125,000 from the Pfizer Foundation and $125,000 from Pfizer Global Research and Development, and a personal donation of $75,000 from John and Mary LaMattina. LaMattina, a member of WPI's Board of Trustees, is president of Pfizer Global Research and Development. The funds will also support the purchase of equipment for the labs.
Unlike WPI's existing first-year chemistry courses, which revolve around a number of carefully planned laboratory experiments, each of the four courses in the new sequence will consist of a single open-ended project that students will tackle in small research teams. The students will present their results in formal written reports.
According to Nicholas Kildahl, professor of chemistry, who led the development of the new sequence, the approach will do far more than provide students with a solid grounding in the fundamentals of chemistry. "Students in these courses will learn about the process of discovery, which is at the heart of all science," he says. "They will learn to think like scientists, carefully planning and conducting their work, striving for repeatable results, keeping careful records, being self-critical, and coming to understand that in the real world, things don't always happen the way one predicts.
"These skills, along with the experience they'll gain working in teams, will serve students well in their required project work at WPI and, later, in their professional lives," says Kildahl, 1996 recipient of the WPI Trustees' Award for Outstanding Teaching, who has been in charge of the university's introductory chemistry sequence since 1998.
In addition to needing significant renovation, WPI's existing introductory chemistry laboratories are poorly suited to support this new way of teaching and learning, Kildahl says. With the funds from the Fuller Foundation and Pfizer, they will be transformed into modern, well-equipped spaces designed for team-based project work. The new labs will consist of stations with hook-ups, glassware, analytical equipment and fume hoods to support teams of two to four students. An adjacent instrumentation room will house spectrometers and other analytical equipment that will be shared by student teams. Whiteboards and consultation space will promote discussions between teams and instructors.
"These laboratories will be exciting and much-needed additions to our facilities," says James Dittami, head of WPI's Chemistry and Biochemistry Department. "But just as important, they will serve as a powerful demonstration of WPI's heritage of innovation in undergraduate education, and our commitment to bringing the benefits of project-based learning--something WPI has done so well for sophomores, juniors and seniors through its required projects--to first-year students. I commend the Fuller Foundation and Pfizer for making it possible for us to implement this important curricular innovation."
