"Chemistry on the Go"
A Collaboration with the
Richmond Math-Science Center

Near the beginning of the C-MoR project, we entered into a partnership with the Richmond Math-Science Center (RMSC), a resource center for elementary, middle, and high schools in the central Virginia region. As part of this partnership the RMSC obtained funds for gas chromatography instrumentation. These instruments together with the modules that we developed as part of the C-MoR project (in particular the GC and Organic Structures Modules) have allowed our partnership to blossom. At this point, we have:

1. provided faculty to train RMSC personnel to use two of our modules, specifically Gas Chromatography and Organic Structures,
2. provided faculty to help RMSC staff teach a workshop of 18 secondary school teachers focused learning to use these two modules together with learning to use the GC instrumentation, and
3. arranged for high schools and middle schools in this region to be able to acquire these two modules (on floppy disk) at modest cost.

The Math-Science Center has equipped a large van with several gas chromatographs, and now sends the van to one school at a time for a few days each, allowing science classes to use the instruments. Our modules are used in preparing students for these visits and in helping them to understand what they did after the van leaves.