NSF Award
9951348
Through computerized automation, X-ray crystallography has matured to become an important complement to NMR, IR, and other common chemical characterization methods. Yet very little instruction in X-ray crystallography occurs at the undergraduate level. This latter notion was reinforced by our survey concerning the state of crystallography education among undergraduate programs in Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky. None of the schools reported implementing crystallography education beyond the minimal level in their curriculum although most (by a 2:1 margin) felt that they needed to provide more instruction. To promote the widespread implementation of significant undergraduate crystallography education, this project is making a single crystal X-ray diffractometer accessible to consortium members through the World Wide Web for use in undergraduate crystallography coursework and undergraduate research. This project adapts the concept of remote observation that is in place for a powder X-ray diffractometer at Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, a scanning electron microscope at Cambridge University, and a scanning probe microscope at Arizona State University.<br/><br/>Members of the consortium working with the host institution, Southwest Missouri State University, include Central Missouri State University, Eastern Kentucky University, Harding University, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Union University, University of Arkansas-Little Rock, and the University of Southern Indiana. Instructional use of the instrument consists of a two to three week teaching module. Students access video, still images, and data from the diffractometer and interact with the diffractometer operator in a "chat-room" environment through a Web page in order to monitor crystal alignment and data collection. The students then perform the structure determination and download the finished data set. Students who need crystallographic data for undergraduate research projects, thus enhancing the undergraduate research experience, also use remote access of the instrument. A first-come/first served public queue established by registration through the Web page insures fair access to all participants, both local and remote. The host institution further uses the instrument to develop new ways of implementing crystallography education throughout the undergraduate curriculum, and to investigate in undergraduate research projects chiral organic products, intermediate complexes for the catalysis of CO2 to organic molecules, solid-solid phase transitions, copper (II) stereo-chemistry, and metal cluster chemistry.
