Lipscomb students test Little Harpeth for pollution as part of innovative science course
Janel Shoun |
“The Power of Science” incorporates not only foundational scientific concepts from the various scientific disciplines, but also hands-on projects and plenty of discussion to apply those concepts to real-world quandaries such as global warming, pollution or food safety. It is designed for non-science majors only and includes a heavy dose of civic engagement, falling in line with Lipscomb’s growth in service-learning curriculum.
The first crop of students spent much of the fall conducting water quality tests on the Little Harpeth River and reading unusual first-year science texts such as Ishmael by Daniel Quinn and State of Fear by Michael Crichton as well as more traditional lectures and labs on scientific principles. This spring, the students will explore the connections between nutrition and physics, possibly trying out the famous Mentos and Coke experiment or field trips to local food manufacturers to illustrate physics concepts.
The class was taught this fall by professors Linda Phipps and Jim Arnett and Autumn Marshall and Alan Bradshaw will take over this spring.
“We would rather them understand a few things in depth, and really take it away with them, than to be able to spout out a bunch of facts they won’t remember later,” said Phipps, who oversaw the project to test water quality in the Little Harpeth River. “We hope they come out of it with an interest and understanding of science and awareness of overall principles.”
As part of Lipscomb’s ongoing efforts to provide the best possible general education foundation for freshmen and sophomores, science faculty have often discussed the possibility of a general science course that would span multiple scientific disciplines, said Arnett.
In 2007 the science college discovered the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement (NCSCE) and its Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) program, which emphasizes learning science principles through community engagement. Lipscomb officials felt that SENCER would be a good fit to kick-start an integrated science course for general education, Arnett said.
College of Natural and Applied Science Dean Ben Hutchinson led a team of four science and education professors and one student to attend the 2007 SENCER Summer Institute, to propose an interdisciplinary, general science course in which students would work in teams to test the water quality of the Little Harpeth River in Middle Tennessee.
In November 2007, Lipscomb was awarded a grant from the SENCER program to pursue developing the general science course, which is required for elementary school education majors. Students who take both semesters of the course fulfill all their science requirements for a non-science major as well as tier II of the SALT Program service-learning requirement.
“It is most important for students pursuing careers in the humanities or education to learn how to connect the foundations of science to their daily lives and the world around them. This course is designed to help students see and appreciate how science affects their lives,” said Hutchinson. “This course will prove not only valuable to students, but to our community as well since the course curriculum requires them to get out and use science to serve and benefit society in a small way.”
In the Little Harpeth River project, students collected sediment and counted the number and type of live organisms they found in each sample, Phipps said. Each type of organism has a high or low tolerance for pollution. So the number of certain types of organisms indicates whether the river is polluted or not.
The students found that the Little Harpeth was average in health for a river in a heavily populated area, Phipps said. The students conducted tests on the sediment and water samples in the lab and made presentations of their findings by groups.
In the spring semester, “We’ll talk about calories, what they are and how food becomes energy. We’ll do some case studies, and look at the electrical activity in the heart,” said Marshall, one of the team teachers for the spring portion.
The class is also characterized by more conversation about the thorny issues related to science, such as global warming, irradiation of beef and using corn for ethanol rather than food.
Only one section of the interdisciplinary general science course is being offered this school year. Then faculty will evaluate how successful the courses were and determine whether to incorporate more SENCER ideals in the science curriculum.