ChemLine

The Illinois-Iowa Section of

• From I-80 east or west: Exit I-80 at Dubuque Street (Exit 244). South on Dubuque to Market. West on Market to Madison (at the river). Turn left to park at the IMU Parking Ramp at Market and Madison, or turn right to park at the North Campus Parking Ramp. Parking is 60¢ per hour.
• For southern approaches to campus, both ramps can be reached by travelling north on Madison Street.
• The South Room is easily reached through the northern-most east-facing set of doors to the IMU, across from the IMU parking ramp.

Dr. Norbert J. Pienta, University of Iowa

The availability of the Internet and computer hardware and software present tempting opportunities for chemistry instruction. With accessibility to all students virtually assured, one can introduce "interventions" whose purpose is to review material that class time does not allow. An example is a mathematics and calculator skills website for the beginning of the first general chemistry course; students are just refreshing their skills or perhaps identifying areas in which they need additional practice. Most chemistry instructors would not wish to spend class time although such an exercise would be deemed worthy of student efforts.

A second general area in which technology might be useful to the faculty and students would be homework. Large institutions make written assignment grading very daunting. (700 students x 25 assignments x 10 questions x 10 minutes to grade each = a very large number!!). If the homework comes with feedback, real learning is accomplished. Furthermore, if the instructor can monitor progress while assignments are being completed, additional illustrated examples can be added to lecture, additional conceptual material introduced, or discussion sections repurposed. Data and observations from two kinds of courses (general chemistry, and a course for non-science majors) will be discussed. Although the data come from students at medium-sized public institutions, they provide an enlightening look at current college students and their instructors.

Norb Pienta was born and raised in upstate New York, where he developed an interest in chemistry in the shadow of one of the world's largest steel mills. He attended the University of Rochester and received a BS in chemistry in 1974. After an entire lifetime in the presence of lake-effect snow, he moved to Chapel Hill, NC to attend graduate school at the University of North Carolina. Norb received his Ph.D. in 1978 studying synthetically-useful organic photochemistry. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the research group of Ned Arnett at Pittsburgh and Duke from 1978-80, where he examined the calorimetry of organic cations generated at low temperatures in superacid media. His first academic appointment was at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville as an Assistant Professor (1980-85) and then a tenured Associate Professor. He returned to his alma mater in 1989 and was involved at UNC-CH with laboratory curriculum development and other undergraduate education issues until 1999. Dr. Pienta joined the faculty at the University of Iowa in 1999 as Associate Professor and General Chemistry Coordinator. He has interests in the use of electronic media to supplement student instruction and the active participation of undergraduates in their learning. Norb has been married to Miriam Gardner, a pediatrician, for 20 years and has four children, Andrew, John, Robert, and Anna. At one point in his life he had several interesting hobbies but has little recollection of what they once were.

For Dr. Pienta's web site, see http://www.uiowa.edu/~chemdept/faculty/pienta

Each of the general chemistry labs is outfitted with 8-10 computer stations (Gateway 350 MHz computers). In a normal lab setting, one station is shared by a team of two students. Students acquire data using Vernier LabPro interfaces interfaced to the computers. Each station has probes to measure temperature, pressure, pH, voltage and light. In addition, a selection of other probes within the Vernier product line are available for demonstrations.

If no other candidates are nominated and seconded at the November 8 meeting, this slate of candidates will be declared elected at that meeting.