Teaching at RUPP continued

We are now about two thirds of the way through our semester at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. The numerous Cambodian holidays have a way of not only disrupting a lab schedule, but also seriously limiting the amount of material that students are taught. I wonder if some of the best students realize this. But I know many do not as they skip extra days leading up to, and then again after the school holiday!

One of our recent experiments involved the use of plants as catalysts in a chemical reaction. This is exactly the same project that my research student is working on. But by giving it to an additional 65 students, we can get a lot more data. As is always the case with research, some experiments work, some do not. In this case, the students (in groups) each had to interpret their own results and tell me whether their Cambodian vegetable worked in the given reaction. We tested our results over several days and with two methods. This type of analysis of an experiment was completely new to them – and challenging. I ended up slowing down the schedule so as to give us an extra day to just look at, interpret and understand our results. I tried to impress upon them the value of this critical thinking process, but don’t know if they bought into it.

In our next experiment we made biodiesel. Done in many general chemistry programs in the US (and made by many amateurs), this is an easy lab. Although it isn’t quite as fun when there isn’t an available vehicle to power with our product! The challenge will be that for this easy lab, they have to write their own lab report (again). Will it be better this time?

I’m about two weeks ahead of my students in finding reagents and equipment for each experiment. (Boy I sure do miss Steve, my lab manager at MC). It doesn’t pay to work any further ahead, because what you find and stash away may disappear again before you need it. My most precious supplies (especially those sent to me from Messiah College) are kept in my office! It is a challenging thing for this Type A person to just “go with the flow.” Uprooted and transplanted here, I think I’ve done pretty well changing my style. But I was more than a little frustrated today to find that my own filter paper, the only box in the whole department that fit the funnels, had disappeared!

If I started again, my course would be different. My students here have very little idea of how they can use a degree in chemistry, other than to return to their home province and teach high school. Other than in environmental chemistry, which is not the same as green chemistry, they are taught very few practical applications of their studies. Complicated and intricate subjects (like quantum mechanics!) are held in high esteem by faculty, yet students understand very little about how chemistry can apply to life and development in Cambodia. (Here’s hoping we do a little better job at this at Messiah College.) So I keep thinking about what the best course in Green Chemistry, in a developing country, would look like. Sure would be fun to try again. Next year? JK, JK

Roseann

P.S. - Yes, I know about the lab student on his cell phone in the picture. This gives you a better understanding of my work here. :) He wasn't the only one. But when you don't have equipment for individual work, this happens...