Students take Action in the Gulf
This past Labor Day weekend, five chemistry students accompanied Professor Larsen on a tour of the coastlines of Mississippi and Louisiana to learn more about the effects of the BP oil spill. They brought back samples of the beach sand and water to study back at St. Mary's and to further their understanding of the many environmental issues facing the gulf.
Chem majors in San Francisco
From left to right: Brian, JP, Dr. Leah Eller, Rob, Nick, Danielle, Mike, Bertrand, Anita, Janice, Dr. Andy Koch, Tabitha (Now Dr. Clem), and Taylor. Emilie and Kristina couldn't make the photo.
Last Spring, 12 St. Mary's students attended the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Fransico. Eight presented their work and we all met after Tabitha Clem's ('05) talk. Tabitha was just finishing up her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley.
The Computerized General Chemistry Laboratory
The general chemistry laboratory houses twelve student computer stations and one instructor station. The laboratory contains three islands which have enough bench space on either side for four student stations. A CPU (central processing unit) is located in a cabinet below the laboratory bench at each station and the computer monitor sits on a shelf above the bench. Two cables are attached to each computer and are used to connect the computer CPU to various instruments by using different adapter connections.
The instruments used in the general chemistry laboratory that can be interfaced to the computer are the Mettler B303 top-loading balance, Mettler AE200 analytical balance, Spectronic 20D spectrophotometer, and Accumet 20 pH meter. The computer does not control every aspect of an interfaced instrument's function so it is still important to know how to operate each instrument correctly.
