Instructor: Rouff/Elzinga
Terms Taught: Spring
Credits: 3
Course description
- This course focuses on the principles and application of modern instrumental methods to evaluate environmental samples of contemporary relevance. The course is structured for students with varied research backgrounds and goals so that they may apply both specific tools (where applicable) and more generally the concepts towards their own graduate-level research. The importance of experimental error, standards, statistics, and quality assurance will be emphasized. Specific analytical methods to be discussed and/or implemented in lab exercises include spectroscopy (UV-vis and flame/graphite furnace atomic absorption), SEM, XRD, FTIR and kinetics of environmentally relevant reactions.
- Most of the time in the course will involve student participation in group-based, hands-on lab research involving sample collection, processing, and analysis, culminating in a written report and oral presentation.
Learning Objectives:
- Develop both the analytical toolsets and mindset for quantitative research.
- Achieve a clear understanding of statistically rigorous analyses that yield quantitative and statistically defendable data.
- Through hands on analysis of environmental samples, apply analytically disparate techniques to answer environmentally significant questions.
Prerequisite: Two semesters undergraduate General Chemistry.