{"id":22024,"date":"2017-10-24T15:26:22","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T19:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=22024"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:36:56","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:36:56","slug":"cure-ious-chemistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=22024","title":{"rendered":"CURE-ious Chemistry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chemistry undergraduates are developing their own research questions and projects in a new class at UNC, thanks to the drive and dedication of organic chemistry professor Nita Eskew.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Madeline
Madeline Cooke (standing) transplants lettuce with other volunteers at the Carolina Campus Community Garden. Cooke began volunteering there each Sunday after taking a chemistry class that required her to do service time in the garden. Photo by Claire Lorch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

Madeline Cooke squats in the dirt and leans over the stacked, wooden two-by-fours supporting a raised garden. Scissors at the ready, she trims away weeds and checks the health of rows of red-stemmed succulents. Although many might consider this jade-like plant \u2014 called purslane \u2014 a weed, it\u2019s actually edible, often found in Asian soups, salads, and stews. And it\u2019s packed with antioxidants.<\/p>\n

Cooke, a UNC senior majoring in chemistry, spent six months last year helping organic chemistry professor Nita Eskew tend to these weedy plants so she could use them in her \u201cChemistry of Purslane\u201d class. A\u00a0Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience<\/a>(CURE), the class provides many students with their first active research experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome students don\u2019t have the opportunity to do undergraduate research while they\u2019re here, so this gives them the experience while also getting course credit,\u201d Eskew explains. \u201cI also wanted to get some type of chemistry research going in an undergrad lab course so students would have some purpose in their experiment other than making crystals and throwing them in the waste jar and walking out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Organic chemistry can be a little obscure, admits Eskew, so a course that highlights real-world applications draws more student attention. \u201cIt\u2019s helpful to have something more concrete you can put your hands on,\u201d says Eskew, adding that the class had so many applicants she couldn\u2019t accept them all.<\/p>\n

Purslane\u2019s antioxidant content suggests it has medicinal properties \u2014 but it\u2019s largely understudied in the United States. Eskew hopes that she and her students can answer some basic questions about it. What are the main differences between the gold and red varieties? Does one have a higher antioxidant concentration than the other? Does the growing environment impact their chemical composition?<\/p>\n

Encouraging curiosity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Throughout the class, which first began in Spring 2017, Eskew teaches standard chemistry techniques like extraction and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy for identifying antioxidants in plants. Although every student learns how to perform these procedures, Eskew encourages each individual group to cultivate their own sets of questions and experiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about not having a recipe,\u201d Eskew points out. \u201cIt\u2019s about developing questions and going through the process of testing and modifying. And it\u2019s also about iteration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"In a traditional chemistry lab, students will complete one experiment and then move onto a different one in the following lab. But in this class, they\u2019ll continue to run the same experiments three times or more, tweaking them each week. \u201cIn research, you don\u2019t just do an experiment one time \u2014 you do it multiple times to try to improve it and see if you can reproduce results.\u201d<\/p>\n

To test the purslane for antioxidants, students perform a procedure involving a color shift that indicates when antioxidants are present. \u201cStudents can actually visualize what\u2019s happening when the electrons are moving because they see a physical change in color,\u201d Eskew says. \u201cIt makes the chemistry of it all more real.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time my team completed the test we were really excited \u2014 because the procedure worked,\u201d Cooke explains. \u201cIt felt very gratifying and ebullient, and I think a lot of my group members shared that energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing together<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before she developed the class, Eskew had never heard of purslane \u2014 until Claire Lorch pointed it out on a tour of the\u00a0Carolina Campus Community Garden<\/a>\u00a0(CCCG), a program of the North Carolina Botanical Garden located on Wilson Street that donates all its produce to university housekeepers. Lorch, the CCCG program manager, solicits volunteers from across campus and the greater community to work in the garden year-round.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned of purslane when my dear friend Vimala (of Vimala\u2019s Curry Blossom Cafe) pointed out the plant and its nutritional value,\u201d Lorch explains. \u201cFrom then on we stopped weeding it and started planting it. Forty percent of the housekeepers are refugees from Burma and appreciate that we have purslane in the garden.\u201d\"\"<\/p>\n

Eskew\u2019s partnership with the CCCG for the class means that it\u2019s also one of the Carolina Center for Public Service\u2019s\u00a0APPLES courses<\/a>, which connect academic learning with community service. Students enrolled in the course, held once a week, must spend a minimum of 30 hours volunteering in the garden \u2014 some of which is used for lab time.<\/p>\n

Since completing the class last spring, Cooke, now Eskew\u2019s teaching assistant, continues to dedicate her time to the garden each Sunday. \u201cIt\u2019s a unique experience in that it\u2019s inter-generational,\u201d she says. \u201cOn campus, I don\u2019t get the opportunity to interact with people who are in different stages of their life, but community members and grad students come to the garden. Gardening is a lot of work with your hands so there\u2019s plenty of time to chat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspiring others<\/strong><\/p>\n

During her own undergraduate career at Carolina, Eskew \u2014 a first-generation college student \u2014 never knew about research opportunities until her adviser suggested she pursue it one summer. She didn\u2019t have any family or friends who were chemists, nor did she understand what chemists did outside the academic environment. This meant graduate school wasn\u2019t originally in the cards for her either, Eskew admits, but that same adviser encouraged her to apply.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the end of that summer doing research, I was hooked with discovery and learning something new \u2014 and realizing that other people had never made the compounds I did or seen their reactions,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s why I think this class is a great opportunity to give students a small introduction into what research is, especially for those who are first-generation or have never been exposed to research.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Eskew is a really special person here at Carolina,\u201d Cooke adds. \u201cIt\u2019s admirable that she put so much time into creating this class, and how dedicated she is to her students. I think getting research experience is one of the most important things during your undergraduate career. It\u2019s changed the way I think. To be put in a setting where no one in the room really knows the answer \u2014 and it\u2019s okay to not know the answer \u2014 that\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Nita Eskew is the director of undergraduate laboratories in the Department of Chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill and a Service-Learning Course Development Grant recipient through the Carolina Center for Public Service. She is also an alumnus, having received both her bachelor\u2019s and PhD degrees in chemistry at Carolina.<\/em><\/p>\n

Madeline Cooke is a senior majoring in chemistry within the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. She is also the teaching assistant for Eskew\u2019s \u201cChemistry of Purslane\u201d class.<\/em><\/p>\n

Claire Lorch manages the Carolina Campus Community Garden, a program of the North Carolina Botanical Garden.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Carolina Campus Community Garden makes use of volunteer support to provide UNC housekeepers with fresh, local, sustainably-grown produce for free. The garden strives to connect students, community members, UNC employees, and gardeners.<\/em><\/p>\n

Story by Alyssa LaFaro for Endeavors <\/a>magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chemistry undergraduates are developing their own research questions and projects in a new class at UNC, thanks to the drive and dedication of organic chemistry professor Nita 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