Belmont’s Department of Chemistry and Physics recently hosted “Back Titrations: Neutralizing Agents – How Basic is It,” a half-day guided inquiry workshop for advanced placement (AP) chemistry high school students. This semester, 22 AP chemistry students from Stewarts Creek High School attended. Event organizer Dr. Danielle Garrett, assistant professor of chemistry education, led an interactive discussion covering topics including neutralization reactions, titration curves and back titrations. Each student was then responsible for completing a series of back titrations to determine the effectiveness of commercial products used to reduce stomach acid such as baking soda, antacid-reducing tablets and milk of magnesia.
After the workshop, students had lunch and engaged with senior chemistry student Christopher Hansen. After a campus tour, students toured Belmont’s lab facilities with College of Sciences and Mathematics Dean Dr. Thom Spence.
This is the third time that AP Chemistry teacher Kevin Vaughn has brought students to this event. Although acid-base chemistry will not be covered in his curriculum until the spring semester, Vaughn stated that the “easy-to-understand explanation of acid-base chemistry was well received by my students, and they truly enjoyed themselves.”
Knowing that schools sequence their course materials in different ways, Garrett works to gear each pre-lab discussion to the group she’s working with. “No matter where students are in their chemistry learning sequence, I love having the opportunity to work with students like Mr. Vaughn’s – engaged, eager to ask and answer questions and eager to learn new material,” she said.
A second workshop will be hosted later this semester for AP chemistry students from Christ Presbyterian Academy.
Two Belmont nursing students, graduate student Jaanki Bhakta and undergraduate student Grace Waters, received March of Dimes Nursing Student of the Year Awards at the March of Dimes Nurse of the Year Awards Banquet held on Belmont’s campus today.
Belmont University student Hannah Kerr is no stranger to taking big stages. Having previously toured in 2016, she has already shared the stage with Christian artists such as Casting Crowns, For King & Country and Newsboys. With the holiday season approaching, Kerr will have the opportunity to take the stage again as she opens for Casting Crowns on their “It’s Finally Christmas Tour.”
Dean of Belmont’s Jack C. Massey College of Business Dr. Pat Raines was the subject of the “Scrubbing In” podcast this week. Created by SpecialtyCare (a Brentwood, Tennessee-based provider of outsourced clinical services to hospitals and other healthcare providers), Scrubbing In is a podcast about innovation in the operating room, speaking to industry leaders and those making changes in both healthcare and the OR.
Chris Hodgin, a freshman religion and the arts and music business double major from McKinney, Texas, said, “I worked with three of our buddies, whose names were Mark, Carolyn and Steven. We played a lot of games with them, like Uno and Jenga, and later that night we also had a dinner party with them, where we sang songs together and ate food. From this experience, I learned that there I people who I naturally tend to alienate merely because they are different than me, and that when I intentionally try to remove the mental barriers that keep me from loving them and enjoying spending time with them, I find that they’re a lot more similar to me than I had ever imagined.”