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In the grant proposal funded by the Instructional Laboratory Improvement program of the National Science Foundation, the stated goal was described in this way: "The excitement of working with state-of-the-art equipment is a very important factor in attracting students to scientific careers. Providing that excitement and thereby attracting students to science is the primary goal of this project."
With those funds we purchased a state-of-the-art 300 MHz FT NMR spectrometer with an automated robot sample changer. This instrument has provided that opportunity to our undergraduate Organic, Inorganic, and Physical Chemistry Lab students. The Organic and Inorganic students get experience processing and evaluating NMR data of their compounds. The Physical Chemistry students get hands-on experience in acquiring their own data. The results of the student surveys have shown that we have been successful in achieving our stated goal. In particular, the survey reveals that the large majority of students are more attracted to science because of the experience provided by this project.
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