Chemistry Professors and Student Publish Journal Article
Chemistry professors Dr. Dan Zuidema and Dr. Preston Hoobler coauthored an article with one of their students, senior Mary Kytle, that was recently published in the Journal of Chemical Education, which is regarded as one of the most prestigious journals on science education and the top journal for chemistry education. The article, “A Class Demonstration That Provides a Simple, Quick Experimental Determination of Planck’s Constant,” describes their efforts to incorporate an interactive class demonstration that clearly illustrates the quantum-mechanical idea of Planck's constant into their introductory chemistry courses.
Planck's constant is a numerical value that relates the energy of a photon of light to its wavelength. Their demonstration visually represents this abstract quantum-mechanical concept in a highly accessible way. The professors assessed students using surveys that evaluated their knowledge of Planck’s constant before and after the demo, while senior Mary Kytle ran the statistical analyses on the data. They also identified how confident the students were in the answers they supplied on the survey. Initially, the students’ knowledge and confidence was low. After the demo, their understanding and confidence were statistically significantly higher.
Professor of chemistry Dr. Dan Zuidema reflected, “I am grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to be able to teach at Covenant where scholarship, good teaching, and a hearty love for the Lord are a part of our culture. It’s exciting to be part of a department at Covenant that is committed to top-tier teaching in chemistry. We are always looking for innovative ways to teach complex abstract concepts to our students in ways that are memorable and accessible. It is a joy to be able to share the complexities our Creator has woven into the fabric of his handiwork with students who are hungry to see this kind of thing!”
Covenant College is a Christ-centered liberal arts institution committed to providing an academically rigorous and biblically grounded education. To learn more about Covenant College, please visit covenant.edu.