Chemistry students at the Academy of the Holy Angels will be tracking their acid/base titration experiments in real-time thanks to a $1,000 STEM grant from Orange & Rockland Utilities. Chemistry teacher Sharon Jureller wrote the successful grant proposal, which will cover the cost of pH meters and computer interfaces.
During the course of their experiments, Jureller’s students will collect data using the computer and will monitor pH changes as reactions occur or during a titration of an acid or base.
"The software we have graphs the results as the experiment is going on, and the students can watch the pH changing in real-time," Jureller said. "It is one of the labs that students say they like and remember the most.”
“Using real-time monitoring of acid-base titrations with pH electrodes and computer interfaces, students can witness and record a chemical reaction in progress," AHA Science Department Chair Patricia Prucnel said. "This special equipment gives the students a view of what analytical chemistry is like in a professional or academic laboratory.”
Jureller holds two degrees in chemistry, including a bachelor’s from Cornell University and a master’s from Stevens Institute of Technology. Her 11-year career in education includes 10 years logged at Holy Angels.
She currently teaches Advanced Placement Chemistry and both honors and high honors courses in this subject.
Asked why science is important to the education of young women, Jureller responded: “Everyone needs to have a detailed understanding of how the world around them functions. They need to appreciate the world as it is to use it wisely and protect it. We need to contest the stereotype that science is a career only for men. We have come a long way in this fight because there are more women in science now than ever before, but we have to keep reminding young women that science careers are possible for them, too.”
AHA previously received an ORU grant to construct the school greenhouse.