Chemistry department receives collaborative grant for watershed research
The chemistry department at Central Michigan University is working to further develop undergraduate research in the environmental sciences.
Along with CMU, Saginaw Valley State University and Delta College were awarded grant money to facilitate cooperation and build a network between the three schools in order to research the Saginaw Bay area watershed.
CMU received $294,390 in grant money from the National Science Foundation to “enhance STEM education with research-based environmental experiments,” according to the NSF. STEM is an acronym for the educational branches of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Chemistry professor Dale Lecaptain said developing STEM research is an important aspect of the grant.
“We are running out of scientists, and as a research based institution, this is the best way we can help solve the problem,” he said. "Most labs at the Chemistry 131 level are all instruction based with a structured answer at the end. We’re hoping this type of learning can spark interest in STEM education and research.”
There are more than 1,200 CMU students involved in the research, many of them Chemistry majors.
One of the main purposes of the grant is to spark interest in research for undergraduate level students, and Lecaptain said he's already noticing the effects.
Chemistry 131 student and Mount Pleasant Freshman Jeff Bomber is already looking forward to being able to do further research.
“I’m actually really excited for the research that will be coming at the end of my 131 lab,” Bomber said. “The best part is going to be able to start research at the university level as a freshman. I never knew that I would get the opportunity this early.”
According to chemistry professor Janice Tomasik, the grant money is being used specifically to fund the research of water quality in the area, including environmental research on Beaver Island. Collected data from the research of all three schools is being used to improve the watershed in the surrounding areas.
“We’re actually doing a longitudinal log of the data collected of water and soil samples on Beaver Island that dates back to the '70s,” Tomasik said. “Here in Mount Pleasant, though, we are studying water and soil samples on the Chippewa River.”
Building a collaboration between the three schools is an essential aspect of the grant.
According to Tomasik, the cooperation doesn’t only help with the collection of the data.
“With CMU as a research focused university, Saginaw Valley as a primarily undergraduate university, and Delta as a community college, there is a lot of valuable stuff we can learn from each other," she said.
Delta College received $99,835 and Saginaw Valley State University received $170,775 each from the NSF. Delta College and SVSU are also looking to expand development research into their biology departments.
