Incorporating Original Research into Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum

Incorporating original research into undergraduate chemistry courses is still in infancy despite the fact that it has a great potential to promote 21st-century skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving. Integrating research into classroom teaching is also expected to inspire deep learning through inquiry and better student engagement.

Within the context of this project, we develop and test original research projects suitable for undergraduate teaching at various levels. One such project was applied in a first-semester physical chemistry course in Fall 2017.

Besides the long-term benefits described above, the original research incorporated in the classroom sparked an immediate interest in pursuing further research in one of the students but also presented new challenges, such as finding suitable research problems, adjusting the difficulty, and dividing the work evenly among students.

Currently, we are in collaboration with, and looking to collaborate more with, faculty in science, math, and computer fields to develop similar original research projects to be incorporated into their classrooms.