CSI in a Lab: A Problem Solving Approach to Undergraduate Chemistry Practicals

With an ever demanding job market and industry complaints of grade inflation in the university sector, our graduates need more than just good grades to obtain successful employment. They need to be able to demonstrate a wide variety of skills such as problem solving, team work and the ability to work on their own initiative. This paper discusses a new type of chemistry practical that tries to incorporate all of these skills into an engaging undergraduate laboratory entitled “Mystery Death on a River”. Chemistry undergraduate labs at present often follow the cookbook recipe approach where students follow a distinct recipe with help from a demonstrator. While these types of laboratories provide the students with valuable skills, they inhibit the student’s ability to understand or provide insight into what they are actually doing throughout the practical (Beussman 2007). This paper discusses the advantages of a ‘Mystery Death’ laboratory where the students work in groups to solve the mystery with little help from demonstrators. The students are presented with a scenario of a death and are asked to work together to design and carryout the experiments necessary for solving the mystery death. They are provided with glassware, chemicals and instruments to carry out the experiments and must finish the day's work with a presentation of their findings. This study provides an interesting insight into group work, student’s skills in the laboratory, problem solving and engaging students within a relaxed laboratory environment

CSI in a Lab: A Problem Solving Approach to Undergraduate Chemistry Practicals

With an ever demanding job market and industry complaints of grade inflation in the university sector, our graduates need more than just good grades to obtain successful employment. They need to be able to demonstrate a wide variety of skills such as problem solving, team work and the ability to work on their own initiative. This paper discusses a new type of chemistry practical that tries to incorporate all of these skills into an engaging undergraduate laboratory entitled “Mystery Death on a River”. Chemistry undergraduate labs at present often follow the cookbook recipe approach where students follow a distinct recipe with help from a demonstrator. While these types of laboratories provide the students with valuable skills, they inhibit the student’s ability to understand or provide insight into what they are actually doing throughout the practical (Beussman 2007). This paper discusses the advantages of a ‘Mystery Death’ laboratory where the students work in groups to solve the mystery with little help from demonstrators. The students are presented with a scenario of a death and are asked to work together to design and carryout the experiments necessary for solving the mystery death. They are provided with glassware, chemicals and instruments to carry out the experiments and must finish the day's work with a presentation of their findings. This study provides an interesting insight into group work, student’s skills in the laboratory, problem solving and engaging students within a relaxed laboratory environment

CSI in a Lab: A problem Solving Approach to Undergraduate Chemistry Practicals

With an ever demanding job market and indu stry complaints of grade inflation in the university sector, o ur graduates need m ore t han jus t good grades to obtain su ccess ful employment. They need to be a b l e to demonstrate a wide variety of skills such as problem solving, team work and the ability to work on t h eir own initia tive. This paper discusses a new type of chemistry practical that tries to incorporate all of these skills in to a n engaging undergraduate la b oratory entitled “Mystery Death on a River”. Chemistry undergraduate labs a t present o f ten follow the cookbook recipe appro a ch where students follow a distin ct recipe wi th help from a de mon strator. While these type s of laboratories provide the students with valuable skills, they inhibit th e student’s ability to understand or pr o vide insight in to what they are a ctually d o i n g throughout the practical (Beussman 2007). This paper discusses the advantages of a ‘Myster y Death’ labora tory where the students work in groups to solve the mystery with little help from demonstra tors. The students are pre sent ed with a scenario of a deat h and are asked t o w o r k t ogether t o de sign and carryout the experiments necessary for solv ing the mystery death. They are provided with glassware, chemicals an d instruments to carry out the experiments and must finish the da y's work with a presentation of their findings. This study provides an interesting in sight into group work , stud e nt’s skills in the laboratory, problem solving and engaging students within a relaxed laboratory environment

Electrodeposition of bismuth at a graphene modified carbon electrode and its application as an easily regenerated sensor for the electrochemical determination of the antimicrobial drug metronidazole

Metronidazole is a well-known antimicrobial drug that belongs to the nitroimidazole family of antibiotics. It has been widely used in the treatment of infections, but its accumulation in aquatic environments is an emerging concern. In this study a glassy carbon electrode was modified with graphene (Gr) nanoplatelets and bismuth. Both the Gr and Bi were electrochemically deposited onto the glassy carbon and the modified electrode was employed in the electrochemical detection of metronidazole. At the modified electrode, the reduction of metronidazole was found to be an adsorption-controlled reaction. The optimised sensor, which was fabricated within 6 min, exhibited good selectivity in the presence of various inorganic and organic compounds, good recovery in tap water, and exhibited a linear calibration curve extending from 0.005 to 260 μM, with a limit of detection of 0.9 nM. The sensor was easily regenerated through the simple oxidation of the Bi deposit followed by a 100 s reduction period in the Bi(III) solution to give a newly generated surface. Good reproducibility was achieved using this simple regeneration approach

Influence of sodium hexametaphosphate addition on the functional properties of milk protein concentrate solutions containing transglutaminase cross-linked proteins

peer-reviewedThe functional properties of milk protein concentrate (MPC) powders are often hindered by their poor solubility. Calcium chelating salts have been shown to improve powder solubility, but generally their action contributes to higher viscosity due to disintegration of casein micelles and higher levels of serum-phase calcium. To help mitigate increases in viscosity associated with calcium chelation, transglutaminase (TGase), an enzyme that covalently crosslinks protein, was employed in an effort to stabilise the casein micelle structure. Sodium hexametaphosphate (SHMP) was added to control (C-MPC) and TGase crosslinked MPC (TG-MPC) dispersions at concentrations of 5, 12.5 and 25 mm prior to analysis. TG-MPC dispersions had lower viscosity than C-MPC dispersions across all SHMP concentrations studied. Crosslinking limited micelle dissociation on SHMP addition and led to greater retention of the white colour of the protein dispersions, while the turbidity of C-MPC dispersions decreased with increasing SHMP addition.Wash Fellowship Programm

Squaramide—Naphthalimide Conjugates as “Turn-On” Fluorescent Sensors for Bromide Through an Aggregation-Disaggregation Approach

The syntheses of two new squaramide-naphthalimide conjugates (SQ1 and SQ2) are reported where both compounds have been shown to act as selective fluorescence “turn on” probes for bromide in aqueous DMSO solution through a disaggregation induced response. SQ1 and SQ2 displayed a large degree of self-aggregation in aqueous solution that is disrupted at increased temperature as studied by 1H NMR and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Moreover, the fluorescence behavior of both receptors was shown to be highly dependent upon the aggregation state and increasing temperature gave rise to a significant increase in fluorescence intensity. Moreover, this disaggregation induced emission (DIE) response was exploited for the selective recognition of certain halides, where the receptors gave rise to distinct responses related to the interaction of the various halide anions with the receptors. Addition of F− rendered both compounds non-emissive; thought to be due to a deprotonation event while, surprisingly, Br− resulted in a dramatic 500–600% fluorescence enhancement thought to be due to a disruption of compound aggregation and allowing the monomeric receptors to dominate in solution. Furthermore, optical sensing parameters such as limits of detection and binding constant of probes were also measured toward the various halides (F−, Cl−, Br−, and I−) where both SQ1 and SQ2 were found to sense halides with adequate sensitivity to measure μM levels of halide contamination. Finally, initial studies in a human cell line were also conducted where it was observed that both compounds are capable of being taken up by HeLa cells, exhibiting intracellular fluorescence as measured by both confocal microscopy and flow cytometry. Finally, using flow cytometry we were also able to show that cells treated with NaBr exhibited a demonstrable spectroscopic response when treated with either SQ1 or SQ2

Evaluation of methods for the reduction of contaminating host reads when performing shotgun metagenomic sequencing of the milk microbiome

peer reviewedShotgun metagenomic sequencing is a valuable tool for the taxonomic and functional profiling of microbial communities. However, this approach is challenging in samples, such as milk, where a low microbial abundance, combined with high levels of host DNA, result in inefficient and uneconomical sequencing. Here we evaluate approaches to deplete host DNA or enrich microbial DNA prior to sequencing using three commercially available kits. We compared the percentage of microbial reads obtained from each kit after shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Using bovine and human milk samples, we determined that host depletion with the MolYsis complete5 kit significantly improved microbial sequencing depth compared to other approaches tested. Importantly, no biases were introduced. Additionally, the increased microbial sequencing depth allowed for further characterization of the microbiome through the generation of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). Furthermore, with the use of a mock community, we compared three common classifiers and determined that Kraken2 was the optimal classifier for these samples. This evaluation shows that microbiome analysis can be performed on both bovine and human milk samples at a much greater resolution without the need for more expensive deep-sequencing approaches.Irish Dairy Lev

CSI in a Lab: A Problem Solving Approach to Undergraduate Chemistry Practicals

With an ever demanding job market and industry complaints of grade inflation in the university sector, our graduates need more than just good grades to obtain successful employment. They need to be able todemonstrate a wide variety of skills such as problem solving, team work and the ability to work on their own initiative. This paper discusses a new type of chemistry practical that tries to incorporate all of these skillsinto an engaging undergraduate laboratory entitled “Mystery Death on a River”.Chemistry undergraduate labs at present often follow the cookbook recipe approach where students follow a distinct recipe with help from a demonstrator. While these types of laboratories provide the students withvaluable skills, they inhibit the student’s ability to understand or provide insight into what they are actually doing throughout the practical (Beussman 2007). This paper discusses the advantages of a ‘Mystery Death’laboratory where the students work in groups to solve the mystery with little help from demonstrators. The students are presented with a scenario of a death and are asked to work together to design and carryout theexperiments necessary for solving the mystery death. They are provided with glassware, chemicals and instruments to carry out the experiments and must finish the day's work with a presentation of their findings.This study provides an interesting insight into group work, student’s skills in the laboratory, problem solving and engaging students within a relaxed laboratory environment

CSI in a Lab: A problem Solving Approach to Undergraduate Chemistry Practicals

With an ever demanding job market and indu stry complaints of grade inflation in the university sector, o ur graduates need m ore t han jus t good grades to obtain su ccess ful employment. They need to be a b l e to demonstrate a wide variety of skills such as problem solving, team work and the ability to work on t h eir own initia tive. This paper discusses a new type of chemistry practical that tries to incorporate all of these skills in to a n engaging undergraduate la b oratory entitled “Mystery Death on a River”. Chemistry undergraduate labs a t present o f ten follow the cookbook recipe appro a ch where students follow a distin ct recipe wi th help from a de mon strator. While these type s of laboratories provide the students with valuable skills, they inhibit th e student’s ability to understand or pr o vide insight in to what they are a ctually d o i n g throughout the practical (Beussman 2007). This paper discusses the advantages of a ‘Myster y Death’ labora tory where the students work in groups to solve the mystery with little help from demonstra tors. The students are pre sent ed with a scenario of a deat h and are asked t o w o r k t ogether t o de sign and carryout the experiments necessary for solv ing the mystery death. They are provided with glassware, chemicals an d instruments to carry out the experiments and must finish the da y's work with a presentation of their findings. This study provides an interesting in sight into group work , stud e nt’s skills in the laboratory, problem solving and engaging students within a relaxed laboratory environment

CSI in a Lab: A problem Solving Approach to Undergraduate Chemistry Practicals

With an ever demanding job market and indu stry complaints of grade inflation in the university sector, o ur graduates need m ore t han jus t good grades to obtain su ccess ful employment. They need to be a b l e to demonstrate a wide variety of skills such as problem solving, team work and the ability to work on t h eir own initia tive. This paper discusses a new type of chemistry practical that tries to incorporate all of these skills in to a n engaging undergraduate la b oratory entitled “Mystery Death on a River”. Chemistry undergraduate labs a t present o f ten follow the cookbook recipe appro a ch where students follow a distin ct recipe wi th help from a de mon strator. While these type s of laboratories provide the students with valuable skills, they inhibit th e student’s ability to understand or pr o vide insight in to what they are a ctually d o i n g throughout the practical (Beussman 2007). This paper discusses the advantages of a ‘Myster y Death’ labora tory where the students work in groups to solve the mystery with little help from demonstra tors. The students are pre sent ed with a scenario of a deat h and are asked t o w o r k t ogether t o de sign and carryout the experiments necessary for solv ing the mystery death. They are provided with glassware, chemicals an d instruments to carry out the experiments and must finish the da y's work with a presentation of their findings. This study provides an interesting in sight into group work , stud e nt’s skills in the laboratory, problem solving and engaging students within a relaxed laboratory environment