Independent Study
» Chemistry
Department I.S. Titles
In chemistry, Independent Study begins in the second semester of the
junior year, when all majors begin a onesemester course that enlarges
their understanding of chemical structure and bonding through the chemical
literature. They learn how to find primary research literature using online
database searching, and how to read and write about specific topics using
the literature they find. In the senior year, students begin two semesters
of Independent Study. Students investigate an original research problem,
present a research seminar on their progress, describe their work in a
poster and a thesis, and defend their thesis orally. Examples of recent
I.S. projects in chemistry are Fuel for the Future: Purification of
Methane Gas Produced via Anaerobic Digestion of Biomass Materials and
Designing
a Chemical Sensor for TNT Using Planar Integrated Optical Waveguide
Attenuated Total Reflectance
Spectrometry. |
