Kurt Winkelmann

• Professor and Head at Valdosta State University

The sudden transition to remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a significant increase in reliance on instructional technology, some unique to STEM disciplines. This violation of students’ expectations for the learning experience presented an additional crisis. Students had to react to the disruption without time to carefu...

For the first time, this book sets out ways to teach the science of nanochemistry at a level suitable for pre-service and in-service teachers in middle and secondary school. The authors draw upon peer-reviewed science education literature for experiments, activities, educational research, and methods of teaching the subject. The book starts with an...

Students' negative perceptions of physical chemistry courses are well-known and are likely impacting their learning and performance in this upper-division course for majors. The syllabus can be the first interaction students have with a course and instructor and can be central to the expectations student set for the learning experience. While sylla...

As explored in this open access book, higher education in STEM fields is influenced by many factors, including education research, government and school policies, financial considerations, technology limitations, and acceptance of innovations by faculty and students. In 2018, Drs. Ryoo and Winkelmann explored the opportunities, challenges, and futu...

Virtual worlds are increasingly popular in educational settings. In order to further usefulness in providing a laboratory education, almost 300 students participated in a study to determine the relative learning gains and attitudes related to performing two chemistry experiments in either the virtual world of Second Life (SL) or a real world labora...

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Cr), a unicellular alga, is routinely utilized to study photosynthetic biochemistry, ciliary motility, and cellular reproduction. Its minimal culture requirements, unicellular morphology, and ease of transformation have made it a popular model system. Despite its relatively slow doubling time, compared with many bacteria,...

Virtual worlds are a potential medium for teaching college-level chemistry laboratory courses. To determine the feasibility of conducting chemistry experiments in such an environment, undergraduate students performed two experiments in the immersive virtual world of Second Life (SL) as part of their regular General Chemistry 2 laboratory course. Th...

A two-week experiment is presented in which students can observe the impact of nanoparticles on the concentration of chlorophyll in plants. First-year students in an introductory nanotechnology laboratory course and a general chemistry laboratory course synthesized silver nanoparticles and then exposed stalks of Egeria densa (E. densa), a common wa...

Silver species pose a threat to aquatic environments. Egeria densa (also known as Elodea densa), a common waterweed, was exposed to silver cations and humic acid-coated silver nanoparticles (AgNps) in an aqueous environment for 7 days. E. densa was chosen for this study because it is a fast-growing aquatic organism that also serves as a model for s...

Sharing progress in nanotechnology education is as important as developing the research programmes themselves, as Kurt Winkelmann explains.

This book presents the perspectives of nanotechnology educators from around the world. Experts present the pressing challenges of teaching nanoscience and engineering to students in all levels of education, postsecondary and informal environments. The book was inspired by the 2014 NSF workshop for Nanoscience and Engineering Education. Since nanote...

Research projects conducted by faculty in STEM departments served as the inspiration for a new curriculum of inquiry-based, multiweek laboratory modules in the general chemistry 1 course. The purpose of this curriculum redesign was to improve students' attitudes about chemistry as well as their self-efficacy and skills in performing inquiry activit...

The National Science Foundation's Nanotechnology in Undergraduate Education (NUE) program recently completed its ten year anniversary. The program is a major source of funding for nanotechnology educators, supporting over one hundred eighty projects via grants totaling $27M between 2003 and 2013 inclusive. It has undergone several important changes...

A small group of high school students performed a virtual laboratory experiment in Second Life that mimicked a real experiment in both its appearance and procedure. Lab report grades were equivalent to report grades for hands-on experiments, and the quality of students' results was similar. Results of an attitudinal survey show that students expres...

Resources are available to help educators teach nanotechnology topics and find curriculum materials for their classes, including published journal articles, video lectures, laboratory experiment procedures and in-person workshops. Educational materials shared by individual scientists and educators, nanotechnology research centers and professional o...

Virtual worlds have a unique capacity to immerse the user in an online community. This experience is helping students learn many subjects, including chemistry. This chapter introduces virtual worlds with special attention paid to Second Life, the most popular virtual world used in education. The next chapter section explains various efforts by educ...

Periodic illumination and changes in the interfacial aqueous-CFC surface area reveal interesting features of the propagation process occurring during the photoinitiated chain reduction of trichlorofluoromethane (CFC 11) to CHCl2F and Cl– in TiO2 suspensions containing HCO2– ions. Formate ions serve as hole scavengers on the TiO2 surface and react w...

Iron nanoparticles are used to remove pollutants from soil and water in the environment and from industrial waste streams. A laboratory experiment described here is based on this application of nanotechnology. The procedure is appropriate for first-year undergraduate students with some background in general chemistry. Students synthesize iron nanop...

A first-year laboratory experiment that utilizes concepts of electrochemical tip etching for scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is described. This experiment can be used in conjunction with any STM experiment. Students electrochemically etch gold STM tips using a time-efficient method, which can then be used in an instructional grade STM that oper...

This chapter provides an overview of nanotechnology-themed experiments for general chemistry laboratory instructors. Prepartions of CdS, Fe 3O4, Ag and Au nanoparticles and Ni nanowires are presented as examples. Each experiment's description includes theoretical background, procedures and applications of the nanomaterial. Additional resources for...

The Florida Institute of Technology offers a unique Nanoscience and Nanotechnology laboratory course exclusively for first-year undergraduate students. Laboratory experiments are team-taught by chemistry, physics, and chemical engineering faculty. During weekly three-hour laboratory sessions, students synthesize nanomaterials and obtain hands-on ex...

The aqueous photocatalytic degradation of cyanate (NCO(-)), which is a long-lived neurotoxin formed during the remediation of cyanide in industrial waste streams, was studied in the ferrate(VI)-UV-TiO2-NCO(-) system. Kinetics measurements of the photocatalytic reduction of ferrate(VI) were carried out as a function of [NCO(-)], [ferrate(VI)], [O(2)...

First-year undergraduate students prepare bulk and nanometer-sized cadmium sulfide clusters within water-in-oil micelles. Particle size is calculated using the effective mass model. Quantum-size effects are observed by visual analysis and in the absorbance spectrum of the CdS nanoparticle microemulsion. This laboratory experiment provides an effect...

Trichlorofluoromethane (CFC 11) was photoreduced in aqueous suspensions of TiO2 particles containing HCO2- ions and air. Dissolved O2 inhibited the reaction during an induction period that preceded the rapid formation of chloride ions. Reaction rates were higher in systems containing O2 as compared to analogous reactions that occurred in anaerobic...

The results of the heterogeneous photocatalytic reduction of Fe(VI) in UV-irradiated TiO2 suspensions are presented and suggest indirect observation of the formation of Fe(V) by the photoreduction of Fe(VI) with ecb− at TiO2 surfaces. Because Fe(V) selectively and rapidly oxidizes low reactivity pollutants with the production of the non-toxic by-pr...

Fluorotrichloromethane (CFC 11) is dehalogenated through a reductive chain reaction upon illumination of aqueous, air-free suspensions of TiO2 particles in the presence of formate ions. The reduction takes place with large photonic efficiencies at pH ≥ 5 even at high photon fluxes, producing mainly Cl- and dichlorofluoromethane (HCFC 21), while F-...

Alkyl radicals can play an important role as intermediates in lean NOx chemistry. This type of chemistry is of relevance to the treatment of emissions from diesel engines. CN radicals have been identified as possible intermediates in a study of the catalytic reduction of propane or ethanol (under lean NOx conditions over a Cu-ZrO2 catalyst). Howeve...