Science students may be aware that Biology
and Chemistry lab fees have been upped from
$25 to $50 in the recent semesters. So where is your extra money going? Don’t whine yet. I sat down with the Dr. Angela Santiago, Chair of the Science Department, to elucidate this matter. The Biology Department has been using your lab fees to invest in new lab equipment including 20 microscopes for the microbiology lab and a FTIR machine for the chemistry analytical lab which is a big plus.
The new microscopes for microbiology cost $15,000. Compared to the compound microscopes, these have higher clarity and better magnification. Microbiology student David Rios comments: “They are amazing, they focus like this (snaps fingers). It is like night and day compared to the compound
microscopes.” He also recommends getting precision weighing scales (measures to the fourth decimal place) for the microbiology labs. At the present time, microbiology students have to transport their equipment and chemicals down to the chemistry lab on the first floor. This is not only time consuming and hazardous, it also interferes with chemistry classes.
A new FTIR (Fourier Transform Infra-Red) instrument replaced the old one in the chemical analysis lab. It cost $20,000 – as much as a new car! It is a blockish machine that is about the size of a desktop lying on its side. It produces infra-red wavelengths which vibrates bonds of the molecules in small samples of solutions and solids. These vibrations are then recorded by a computer as peaks on a graph which can be analyzed and printed. So far, the machine has been used by Forensic Chemistry and Organic Chemistry classes to identify functional groups that releases characteristic vibrations.. Analytical chemistry offered in the fall will also have a new instrument to play with.
The analytical lab still needs an NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) and a Mass Spectroscopy instrument to be a complete undergraduate lab. Each cost upwards of $50,000 to purchase and even more to maintain.Students going into molecular biology,chemistry and biochemistry will be missing out on valuable experience in operating these machines. For now, they will have to settle for pictures and the theory of how these instruments work.
These new additions are just the start of more improvements. Plans for next semester include the installation of an air compressor in the basement of Dana Hall for the physics labs. Compressed air will increase the breadth of physics experiments, including those that require equipment to be dried quickly. Compressed air will also benefit the chemistry labs which have the piping from the old compressor which needs replacing. Dr. Angela Santiago is glad with the commitment of the School of Arts and Sciences in supporting the revamping of the science program. She hopes to have a full infrastructure plan for the next five years which will be based on a review of the science program to be completed next semester. For now, biology students are waiting to see further improvements.