CHEM-465 CHEMISTRY SENIOR SEMINAR Semester Web-Site Construction Project

Senior seminar this semester is built around the theme, Getting Serious about Your Future: Chemistry and Biochemistry of Contemporary Issues. Most of your classes in chemistry have dealt with the content rather than the application of chemistry. However, after graduation the reverse is likely to be true. Real-world problems rarely have simple answers. They involve multiple dimensions and considerations of which chemistry is but one. However, a knowledge of chemistry provides great insight into understanding the fundamental aspects of many problems in the world. Unfortunately, few people have the knowledge of chemistry to make the necessary connections and contribute to solutions both social and technical. In preparation for your transition to the real world, you will work in collaboration with several other student on the study of a societal problem that has a significant chemical component. Your findings will be presented as a short talk to your classmates and as a web site to the world. The following is a time table and description of the web site construction project. Information about constructing student web pages is available.

31 August: First day of class. Fill out and turn in a questionnaire that assesses your feelings, attitudes, and knowledge about a number of societal issues. From the list of issues, identify and rank three that you find interesting enough to spend most of the semester exploring and turn your list in to your instructor. The instructor will take the lists and match students in threesomes or foursomes based on similarity of interest in a particular topic.

7 September: Assignment of working teams and topics.

14 September: Evaluation of CHEM-465 web sites from 2010 due.

12 October: Turn in an outline or a concept map of the planned organization of the web site.

22 October: Team web sites need to be activated on or before this date.

24 October: Peer evaluations of Web-sites due by 8:00 PM!

2 November: Final revisons to websites must be completed.

9, 16 & 30 November : oral presentations scheduled.