Organic Environmental Chemistry, An Integrated Approach for Tribal College Students

Salish Kootenai College, Pablo MT

Investigators

Abstract

0010054 Stevens This proposal will develop and establish a new course at the Salish Kootenai College (SKC), a tribal college located in northwestern Montana. This new course will be one in a series of three needed upper level courses covering the topic of Environmental Chemistry. This is an area of weakness in the current SKC Environmental Sciences Program. The subject of the course will be the source, fate, effects, etc. of organic pollutants in the environment. This will compliment another course dealing with similar issues as they pertain to inorganic pollutants. This new course also has a laboratory component that will serve as a vehicle to familiarize tribal students with the basic concepts of organic, analytical chemistry. Therefore, included in this project is the purchase a gas chromatography and a liquid chromatography system. These instruments are necessary for the analysis of the typically encountered organic pollutants: volatilizable organic compounds, such as pesticides, fuels and fuel additives (MTBE) and plant constituents, and non-volatilizable compounds such as herbicides, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and plant constituents The instrumentation is integral to the new course to achieve one of the major goals: training tribal students in the analysis of environmental samples for organic pollutants. Additionally, the instrumentation will provide a valuable, needed resource that will vastly improve the on-going, successful senior research projects at SKC. These activities will also add substantially to the preparedness and, hopefully the enthusiasm, of SKC graduates in Environmental Science for both the workplace and graduate school. Overall, this proposal addresses the need to integrate state-of-the-art technology and education to provide for a complete student experience while supporting the development of Native American scientists, which are the most underrepresented population group in the scientific arena.