A three-year $180,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will improve the University of the Virgin Islands' chemistry laboratories, part of an innovative NSF-sponsored program that is revising UVI's science and mathematics curriculum as well.
UVI is implementing changes to its science and mathematics curriculum as part of its Caribbean Scholars Program, funded by a $3.5 million NSF Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) grant. The Caribbean Scholars Grant enables UVI to reform its science and mathematics curriculum over a five-year period, in innovative ways, to improve students' retention and make science and mathematics more relevant to them.
The grant will make it possible for UVI to purchase two new laboratory instruments and to upgrade a third so that students can utilize the most modern instrumental methods.
UVI chemistry professor Frank P. Rinehart is the principal investigator for the Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program grant. "We hope to boost enrollment through this project and to motivate students to excel in their work," he said.
Rinehart said first semester chemistry students will be asked to create a substance and then analyze its makeup through a combination of traditional wet chemistry methods and modern instrumental methods.
"It's one thing to think that you have made something and it's another to prove that you have made it," Rinehart said.
UVI's participation in National Science Foundation grant programs puts makes it part of a national experiment to improve teaching methods in science and mathematics.
The CCLI grant proposal was written by Rinehart and UVI chemistry professors Mary Whitten and Ralph Isovitsch.
