Skip to main content
news

Course Highlight: Chem 110B

20 August 2019

For first year students at Penn State, it can be difficult to see how chemistry will apply to their future studies. That’s why Assistant Teaching Professor Aaron Garner and Department of Chemistry Head Philip Bevilacqua developed a new section of Chem 110 for students interested in biology, which will be taught this fall by Dr. Garner and Dr. Xin Zhang, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 

The course, Chem 110B, was inspired by Dr. Garner’s experiences at Harvard, where he coordinated a similar class that provided an interdisciplinary perspective on chemistry. Dr. Garner wanted to bring the same experience to Penn State. “We want the course to be meaningful to the students,” he explains, “we want to make it feel useful.” In order to serve these students, Dr. Garner and Dr. Bevilacqua decided to customize the curriculum of Chem 110 to help those interested in biology understand how chemistry can connect to their disciplines. The result was Chem 110B, a unique course that encourages students to think about chemistry in a new way. 

Chem 110B uses important topics in the field of biology and actual research going on at Penn State to contextualize the chemistry concepts students learn in the course. “We tried to connect the curriculum to real life,” Dr. Garner adds, “the students get a chance to see how chemistry connects to real problems...while also preparing for more advanced coursework.” Aside from the topics covered in traditional sections of Chem 110, the course covers the origins of life, antibiotics and drug resistance, and proteins and nucleic acids.

In the classroom, the students tackle these topics in an encouraging environment based around active learning. Dr. Garner explains that the class is structured to have as little lecture as possible, allowing the students to engage in active learning and think deeply about the material. Students work with Learning  Assistants and Teaching Assistants during lectures to talk through questions and assemble models of molecules, all while connecting important topics in biology to chemistry. 

Specialized content isn’t the only benefit Chem 110B offers students. The course also gives students the chance to build soft skills. For example, the class offers a two stage exam, which offers students a chance to retake exams as a team after taking it individually. “The goal is to allow students to see what they did wrong,” Dr. Garner adds, noting that this approach builds communication, critical thinking, and problem solving skills. 

Outside of the classroom, students have the chance to build advanced computer skills. The course uses PyMOL, software that allows students to visualize molecules. “Students are not usually exposed to PyMOL at the freshman level,” says Dr. Garner, “...it’s a great opportunity.” Students also have access to practice questions and video explanations of the answers through Canvas and a question forum in Piazza. The Piazza forum allows students to post questions and receive answers from instructors and other students in real time. These tools are all part of Dr. Garner’s efforts to create an engaging environment. 

Students are responding positively to these teaching techniques. In fact, Dr. Bevilacqua recently received The Priestley Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching in recognition of his work on the course, with student nominators praising the unique design of the course. Dr. Garner hopes that the students carry the lessons of Chem 110B with them after they leave the class, “we show students ways to approach things that are so complicated they seem unapproachable,” he explains, “the goal is to help students learn to apply things they’ve learned to things they’ve never seen before.”

Communications Coordinator