The NKU chemistry department takes pride in the quaility of the education it provides and the outreach it conducts within the university and the community at large. Below are some descriptions of outreach activities and ways we are working to improve education both inside and outside the classroom

Click here to see a list of publications from the NKU Chemistry Department involving outreach and education.

For last several years I have participated in numerous educational and outreach activities (e.g. middle and high school alliances, summer workshops for Northern Kentucky science teachers and students, development of CHE 105 course etc.). During the summer of 2003 I was one of the instructors in the Forensic Science summer camp (CSI-NKU) for middle school students. This highly successful summer camp was sponsored by the Center for Integrative Natural Science and Mathematics (CINSAM).

The summer workshops for science teachers and students Dr. Vernon Hicks and I have taught since 1987 have been made possible with outside funding from several agencies and matching grants from NKU and CINSAM. The total of all the funding we received, including a major grant from DOE/KyEPSCoR is well over $800,000.

A nearly two hundred thousand dollar grant from the DOE and KyEPSCoR received over a seven-year period was utilized for developing a new discovery and technology-based course, "Discovering Chemistry with Lab"(CHE105) for education majors at NKU. Subsequently, CHE105 was approved as a general studies course. This innovative course was the first freshman chemistry course in our department to utilize Hyperstudio-based multimedia lessons and introduce the use of computers in the lab. The hardware and the related equipment purchased from this grant included several desktop and laptop computers, printer, scanners, jaz and zip drives, video cameras, videodiscs, videodisc players, monitors, CD-ROMs, video tapes, CD burner, CBL and LabPro data collection units and a variety of probes etc.

My current interest is in the development of web-based testing applications, especially those which incoprorate three-dimensional graphics with algorithmic generation of questions. I use two different applications, an in house program called The Internet Quiz Program (IQP), as well as a commercial program (e-Grade). A sample e-Grade question is shown below. In the actual question, the molecule can be manipulated using the Chime plug-in. I am currently working on an e-Grade question database to accompany the Solomons and Fryhle organic chemistry text book. If you are interested in developing web-based testing for chemistry or would like to discuss ideas regarding web-based testing please feel free to contact me at russellk@nku.edu.

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