Vernier Software & Technology awarded UNM $10,000 worth of choice chemistry equipment for a mobile laboratory that delivers scientific tools to middle and high schools.
The UChem Teach Mobile lab brings chemistry lab equipment to eighth- through 12th-grade classrooms across New Mexico, and UNM chemistry teaching assistant Paul Hunt said the equipment grant will help update the labs.
“The chemistry teaching labs were in dire need of renovation,” he said. “The last renovation was in the 1980s. Furthermore, lab techniques have developed considerably in the last 20 years.
Equipping students to work as technicians or as researchers necessitates the use of modern equipment.”
Vernier awarded grants to 30 schools: 10 elementary or middle schools, 10 high schools, and 10 college or university science departments, UNM included, across the United States to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
UNM Director of Chemical Education K. Joseph Ho said the grant will help increase students’ exposure to chemistry by bringing fully equipped mobile labs to their classrooms.
“I believe when students are given the opportunity to have hands-on experience in their high school education they will tend to be more interested in science and technology fields,” he said. “So I would like to acquire equipment more appropriate for high schools.”
Ho said many New Mexico schools, particularly those in rural areas, are far short of being equipped with adequate laboratory equipment. He said 50 percent of UNM students taking a general chemistry lab course have never had experience in a lab before college.
The mobile lab aims to change that. Teachers can pick up lab equipment from UNM or have it shipped to their classrooms. The chemistry department also offers technical support to help teachers set up labs and run experiments.
During the summer Ho said he uses the equipment in the mobile lab in workshops to train teachers and help them prepare hands-on chemistry lessons.
Valerie Varoz teaches beginning and advanced chemistry at Sandia High School and said she and many teachers she knows regularly use equipment from UNM.
“Having access to this equipment really opens the door as far as what kind of labs you can do,” she said. “There are smaller schools with smaller budgets, and without being able to borrow equipment from a program like this they wouldn’t even be able to have really a large-scale chemistry lab at all.”
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